Why not horns?

Unsound, I appreciate your last comment. It is where I was for many years, and to this day (and I expect for years to come) I still run into horn designs that are guilty of everything you mention in your first paragraph. When horns suck, they really suck. But like any technology, its all in the execution, and when you encounter good horns, they will lack most of the objections you have except size and maybe what it means to be ugly.

A special point with regards to

so sensitive that they amplify every minutia of noise and distortion

Really, every speaker must play every minutia of noise and distortion to be a good speaker, but the noise/distortion floor of electronics is definitely an issue with horns. When we first encountered customers with horns, I think we failed pretty badly on this point because our reference speakers at the time were 89 db. This forced us to really figure out how to get our noise and low level distortion floors down with the end result that we now build a much better product. That revealing nature is thus a boon to progress, but a bane if you have problems in the electronics.

Well, alrighty then. Would anyone like a biscuit with their tea? I found the weather a little disagreeable this morning.

Unsound please name the horns you've owned heard etc that are honky, screechy, shouty, have a cupped coloration

JohnK, do your really think I would let horns in my home?

Unsound - You have shared some very certain opinions. I think you are being asked for specifics as to how you came to form these opinions. Certainly you aren't just making this up. Where, when and which horns sounded so bad that you would condemn them all generically? Was it the PA system in your grammar school? The announcer at a sports event? Some home made affair at a rock show? Was it Klipsch, JBL, Altec, EV, Cerwin Vega, Avant Garde or some other audiophile product? Keep sharing. At least a few of us wonder as to what could have scarred you thusly. The damage seems profound and you appear to feel it is irreversible. It might be a healing experience to get the matter off your chest by talking it through at long last. We're here for you.