Nature of the current used speaker market

I remember the used market being a cheap, nominal listing fee and being able to find almost anything one wanted in a short time period. Used market prices were stable. Now is there is next to nothing, and ads are commonly filled with items with frustratingly high asking prices. And those ads sit there for a long time. Maybe sellers, which are largely professional, are waiting for a break in sanity of weak willed buyer. I don't know. I am writing this because I just saw an item at a reasonable price. I was interested until it was described as partially broken. Ugh. When something reasonable does come along, one has to be prepared to act fast. 

Please allow me to present a thought that may insult, but it’s my opinion.
in the 50’s most radios had a single tone control where to one extreme gave you more bass/less treble and at the other extreme gave you less bass/more treble. Simple but limiting.  Then came receivers with both bass and treble, easy for anyone to make a very gross adjustment according to their likings. The super receivers of the late 70’s all upped it by also having midrange controls and then came the 10-16 step equalizers.  All of this to allow the user to contour the sound according to their taste and room.
When the majority of what I read now is people and dealers using assorted components for the same task of adjusting tone it insults my intelligence. I don’t mean to say that cables and interconnects don’t have slight colorations, and certainly different amps will sound differently.  I do mean to say that the job of a cable and interconnect is to pass information along and not act as the tone control.  But when I read that people are not happy with a particular speaker because it’s too bright or doesn’t have the bass slam they want and they go and start changing components to achieve adjustments it just seems to me as bad logic.  Very expensive bad logic.  Yes, I know there are people who think tone controls (even volume controls) are a bane to good quality sound...probably technically true..but still the alternative of swapping components bothers me.
i have done it...I have 6 sets of speaker cables, 4 sets of interconnects, 4 amplifiers, 5 sets of stereo speakers, 2 sets of home theater speakers, etc.......

in the past each addition was done to go a step higher in the quality of sound ladder (some were higher, most achieved a sideways result, all were Higher cost than the item it replaced).
now resigned to the fact that this path has no end, I look at them as if they were a collection of classic cars...all to be enjoyed for their different flavors.

In continuation....so what does this have to do with speaker prices....everything.
when I was ready to upgrade I went into the 10k-20k speaker price range.
i narrowed it down to Verity Parsifal’s, Ultima Salons, B&W 802d, Egglestonworks Andra’s, Vandersteen 5. Couldn’t get to hear them so I read and read.  Then decided to do what I do when I buy cars - look at resale value...just in case.
not that speakers deteriorate with miles like cars but man do prices deteriorate.
Good for used buyer, bad for used seller. 
That made it clear to me that a purchase of new should be if not a lifetime buy, then at least a 10 year buy.

As an aging audiophile, who over the years, has been more interested in building a well thought and cost coherent system that could produce an engaging performance, rather than spending ridiculous amounts of $$$ buying expensive gear to make other expensive gear sound listenable.
After moving into a smaller space, I downsized from my quads to (after many hours of auditioning) a set of small 2 way floor standing gems, whose big open detailed, but musical sound defied their reasonable cost.
Recently, after moving back into a larger space, I decided maybe time to upgrade. One of the rather pricey ($12.5K) book shelf sized speakers on dedicated fancy stands, that I auditioned, had a great deal of hype regarding how detailed and spectacular they sound. At first I was impressed with their detailed and aggressive sound, but after about ten minuets of listening, at a quite moderate level, my head hurt and I thought my ears were going to bleed. I thought - Wow, if I just spend $10K or $20K on cables, $10K on a magic wall cord and another $30K or $40K on a better amp - maybe I could tame these speakers to sound something like music.
Looking at the featured ads on A-gon and Audiomart and seeing most of the used speakers and electronics, listing for tens of thousands of $$$ - little wonder people are loosing interest....Jim