How come Horn + woofer designs are not more popular?


A couple guys on my audio discord really love the JBL synthesis 4367 and feel that all traditional 3 way tower speakers suck because they have poor bass response and are generally shy sounding. What I wonder is how come the majority of speaker makes do floor standers that are 3 way as oppose to the Horn +woofer design of JBL?

Is there any downsides to the horn + woofer design? Can a horn convey microdetail as well as a Be tweeter like say from magic A or S line? They claim 3 way floor standers are just trendy. But is there anything more to it then that?
smodtactical
I have a pair of Rethm Saadhana, a beautiful (in sound AND looks) horn speaker with built in powered bass modules, so you get great bass that is well matched to the horn output. Those interested in horns should listen before deciding as I think many would be big fans.
I feel the speaker choice is relitive to the music.  I like Klipsch Forte and Hersey for what I feel is a more in your face rock hard speakers.  These can take some punishing while preserving the original detail.  The new JBL's have been on my horizon, as they look and sound tasty.  
Good speakers play everything well and make bad recordings sound better even if they are not as good as the best recordings. There are good examples of every type of speaker (except the Hill Plasmatronic.) Mostly what you like depends on what you were exposed too. If you have only heard crappy horn speakers that is the opinion you will have, same for ESLs. Most people have dynamic speakers because they are easier to build, can be more aesthetically pleasing and are generally smaller than the best examples of horns or ESLs. My problem with most speakers is that they are hard to integrate into a normal size room acoustically. The room and speaker are a system. Some speakers will never sound good and some rooms will never sound good. Thinking about my self I go with what I have learned to work with and know I can get to work to my expectation in my own room. Making mistakes gets far too expensive at this level and I have already made enough of them.
Oh, back on topic, there is a compromise in a two way horn system that is difficult to get around. You either have to run a woofer up into the midrange or make a very large horn to get down to where most woofers do well. I do not think there is a satisfactory middle ground. Look how large a K Horn midrange horn has to be just to get down to 500 Hz were it crosses to a 15 inch woofer. This is one area were that ESLs have a major advantage over both horns and dynamic speakers. You can easily design a speaker that is One Way all the way down to 100 Hz as long as you can live with the size. 

I built a few custom horn speakers and used Sony Alnico woofers (only 2 pair in the USA).  I bi-amped them with custom tube mono-block amps that I built (1.5 watts) to drive the horns.  They sounded amazing but they wee large so no WAF.  I never could get the bass to keep up with the horns though.  My buddy has Klipsch and why the mids are excellent, the bass always lags behind.  Do not know his model but he has had them modified.


Happy Listening.