Well, I guess "universally admired" is a rather relative term, because many of the items I’m seeing listed are not admired by me because I haven’t even heard of them let alone actually HEARD them... though other people are free to admire them, of course, but that's not universal then, is it.
Plus from what I can tell on this and other "audiophile" forums, there’s a wide range of opinion on what’s admirable. Personally, I particularly admire accessible lower-cost gear that nevertheless provides the purchaser with reliable, excellent and enjoyable everyday household use. I don’t particularly admire pieces enshrined in a hidden museum room nor higher priced items that don’t advance much over a lower-priced counterpart... sure, the 7-10k speakers that I heard recently when I went out auditioning sounded great, but really not much better, particularly in the mid and high frequencies, than speakers that I already own that I have less than 1k in... so, I can’t really admire a piece that costs 10x as much and offers MAYBE 10% "better" performance, if that, to my ears. I admire the engineering creativity that goes into excellent lower-cost gear, because throw enough money at something and sure you can get "great" given you have a competent engineering team but the real trick is maintain budget AND get results, particularly results in usable household form.
But then, even "lower-cost" and "excellent" and even "enjoyable" and "budget" are relative terms too, aren’t they?