Horn based loudspeakers why the controversy?

I'm a fan of horns, though I currently don't run a pair.

I have some close friends who REALLY dislike horns, and instead of trying to convince or talk over them, I prefer to listen and understand their complaints.  Beyond the typical complaints about shout, some centers on the integration or lack thereof of such disparate drivers.  Even as a fan, I acknowledge and understand, though I've listened to more than a few "regular" designs that do as badly or worse.

One more thing...horns come in both front-loaded and back-loaded configurations.  Almost always in these discussions, we mean the former when we use the terms generically, but some excellent back-loaded horn products have come down the pike

 Everybody has horror stories about hearing horn's. I remember the first time I went to addition a pair of model nineteens. The owner had them hooked up to a solid-state Mac and proceeded to turn them up so they were playing at about 120 DB steady. He looked at me with a big smile  and said see how clear they are? He didn't even have them set up properly, had  them facing one another across the room. I couldn't get out of there fast enough. Thankfully down the line I had some reasonable experiences  and grew to appreciate horns greatly. 

 Regarding Altec A7's I had a pair for a while and after quite a few mods they can sound quite good.  

Well, being an owner of new Klipsch Forte III's, I thought I'd chime in. Had Magnepan .7's for awhile and really liked them. In my listening area I knew I was only getting about 75% of what they could deliver because of space considerations. Took the plunge on the Forte's (my 3rd pair of Klipsch over the years). I can say I am very pleased and frankly, pleasantly surprised. They are the most refined yet dynamic sounding Klipsch I have owned. They aren't for everyone but with my taste in music being primarily electric blues and classic rock (Yes spinning now) they fit the bill. One man's trash, another's treasure. Using a Rogue Sphinx with upgraded tubes with splendid results...

My first my first encounter with horns were Klipsch La Scalas driven by early transistor amplifiers. Not pleasant—but great party speakers. Ditto classic Klipschorns. Never heard these with any kind of tube amp, let alone an SET. Fast forward 30 some years and I heard a pair of Avant-garde Duos driven by an all-BAT tube system. Astounding! The bass (which is delivered by a conventional powered woofer), was not dialed in at all, but that was not the speaker’s fault. Victor Khomenko, BAT’s designer just hadn’t gotten around to that. He was running a prototype of a new phonostage and he wasn’t listening for the bass. Victor is big on what he calls “dynamic tracking” and horns do that very well. At very low levels, many speakers just don’t respond at all. They operate like a noise gate in a recording studio; everything below a certain threshold is just swallowed up, rather than being reproduced. Horns avoid that problem, although they have others including, sometimes, significant coloration and a lack of low bass (unless they are really large, like a K-Horn).