Thanks all.
I'm picking up, in summary, that a 10k speaker today could likely best a significantly more expensive 10 year old design. However, a great speaker is a great speaker. It's still very much all about finding the qualities that each individual values and what works best for each system. Of course, the room is always another major variable.
Also, lower priced speakers have seen perhaps the most improvement in terms of SQ for dollar spent. Does this sound about right?