How thick should the front baffle of speakers be?

Many designers are using smaller woofers, they understand that the back waves often bounce back and right through the diaphragm. Not good. Those large woofers 10" and 12" suffer the worst. Not to mention the listener. 

The only reason small woofers proliferate these days is that designers can orient them front-facing and still make the cabinets slim, and hence decorator- and spouse-friendly. I've heard multiple small woofers in speakers vs. a 12", and preferred the 12" every time.

Well I dont think a speaker can sound accurate with one genre of music and not another. Harbeth's lossy cabinet represents the worst possible approach to this problem in my opinion. 

jsautter,
I disagree.  The Harbeth SuperHL5plus that I owned sounded excellent with all genres.  A very balanced, neutral and revealing speaker (which employed it's lossy approach to actually achieve this balance).

I have to agree with jsautter with respect to lossy cabinets. It’s an attempt to make the cabinets sounds “add” to the drivers output in a perceived pleasurable manner. My (admittedly) personal preference is a design that minimizes the cabinet’s -specifically the baffle influence on the overall output.