Sorry for not using quotes, there's too much, I will try to just write my thoughts.
If we accept the theory that homo sapiens emerged around 300.000 years ago, and Hertz came up with his theory about 120 years ago and was officially accepted/adopted ~60 years ago, it's quite a young theory compared to mankind. And if everything we scientifically know and measure is based on such a young theory there could potentially be things we don't yet know or understand. As every generation thought they knew everything there is to know and proven wrong time after time, we could experience the same, maybe in our lifetime. It's more like a thought-provoking exercise, not an assumption nor stating facts.
Regarding the acquired taste concept, I believe it's true to wine, food sound, and other things. It's the phenomenon that you don't know what you don't know. I didn't know what was hidden in music while I was listening on simple headphones or speakers in a room full of reflections.
As I started to optimize, get more resolution, more clarity, got rid of some reflections, I started to hear things that were not there before. If some soundwaves cancel each other out you might not perceive them. If some equipment colours the sound, or simply doesn't have the capability to transmit it to your ears, you won't know about it. But once you hear it once you will miss it if it's not there anymore. Same as with food or wine, or with driving a fast car. When you go from 50hp to 150hp you feel the wow effect, then you get used to it and you will miss the power if it's not there. Once you taste really amazing food, you will miss it when you go back to salt and pepper. If you try really amazing wine you will notice the difference when drinking a simple wine, even though it might please you just as much. But to know what you don't know you need to experience it first. So maybe, there is something science cannot explain but you can feel it, once the environment is prepared to reveal it, when your system and listening room and your own experience reaches that point, maybe the direction of a cable can make a difference. Maybe science did not discover everything there is to discover. It usually starts from the point that is considered and accepted as the non-disputable truth, then works from there. But there many theories which someday might be challenged, it's all relative in the end :)
I think a blind test using one's own equipment if the person is open-minded, self-aware, and critical, could work, it would also imply using a wire which is built exactly the same, except the actual direction, meaning no ground on one side of the connectors and no special electronics etc., that obviously skew the results, just simple soldered connectors.
