How does this make sense, any sense? Any sense at all??

Why would you pay 38 grand when you can get the same category for 1500?
Sigh...consider another hobby

OP, people have different needs. Space being one of them

Ideally, you wouldn't put put small speaker in a large room, nor vice versa

I happen to be blessed/cursed with a very large room by most enthusiasts standards. I have tried several dual sub setups, but have yet to find any of them blending seamlessly, and although I do not believe that bass loads in a room in same plane as the mid/highs, I am in the process of trying Emerald Physics 2.8s. Fingers crossed

The thing to realize is A speaker must do exponentially more work as the frequency drops. Way way way more work must be done to deliver extended flat bass in a larger room. It makes sense then that it will cost way more for a speaker to do a top notch job in a larger room.
It’s really that simple. Most good quality speakers can do an adequate job otherwise, personal preferences aside.
The caveats are keep the room small for best sound on a budget and powered subwoofers are your friends.

The other thing to remember is technology continues to improve allowing smaller speakers to do way more than in the past, similar to how computer technology continues to get faster and better and in smaller packages. So expect to pay a premium for truly the best speaker technology and design in a smaller package. Joseph audio comes to mind there.

The kef ls50 offers a lot of that in a small and affordable package but is still best suited to smaller rooms alone and the amp needed to drive them to their max might cost something of a premium. 

Hopefully, this helps.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=34Em8BkZYnI

The title of this thread reminds me of the Chewbacca Defense 

Stereophile has consistently exaggerated wildly the acoustic properties of the LS50.  This is just one manifestation of a particularly regrettable and much larger trend.