What would you say is THE MOST important factor to good imaging?

The weakest link.
You can’t answer this absolutely without context. There are multiple conditions that are necessary without being individually sufficient. You have a series of elements aimed at producing a desired outcome. If any of them are inadequate the outcome will suffer. A perfect hardware chain from power to room acoustics would be useless with a mono recording. 

assuming excellent engineering of source material, any decent system, and decent speakers:

speaker placement in a room with not too close side and rear walls to avoid too early reflections, listening position close to equal distance triangle, adjust toe in direct for center only, or adjust toe in for a bit wider imaging for 2 focused listeners, (thus: method of moving/marking speaker locations tto change to either situation) and,

balance control, remote from listening position, to instantly fix darn good but not perfect engineering/balance for any individual track, live broadcast, whole 'collection' lps, cds ... with a gaggle of different tracks involving different engineering.

avsjerry, what’s your point? Are you suggesting you are getting anything remotely close to the sound of the Valor with 2% of the budget?

Why don’t you detail your system here? How about posting it entirely, including cabling. Further, you have shown you can post pics. I would like to see images of your system and room.

You made big claims. How about trying to back it up? :)

Now, if you meant getting somewhat, or "basically" the same in one parameter of performance, I still would question that for several reasons, but at least it would be a comment made in the realm of possibility and sensibility.  

Yeah, cause if Douglas don't believe it, it ain't so............

ozzy62, what's your problem? I'm entitled to doubt claims that seem incredulous. He mentions the Legacy Valor speakers I first commented about, then says he has accomplished, "I've accomplished basically the same for +/- 2% of their price."  

Now, let's look at that claim, which, if it pertains to holistic sound, means he claims he is getting the same sound from about +/- $1,600 investment. Does he mean the DAC, processor, preamp all included, because that would necessarily be the need in order to substantiate such a claim, as the Legacy Wavelet combines all these. This also, imo, would be a nonsensical claim. 

Does he mean he thinks he is getting the speakers to sound like the Valor? Does he think he's going to get sound quality anywhere near it if he uses +/- $1,600 on gear? 

So, yeah, I want clarification. I pointed out that he may be discussing merely one parameter, that is, center imaging. Frankly, with his speakers shown he is not getting anything remotely like the Valor in terms of imaging. I know that because I own omni speakers and am familiar with the dispersion pattern.