Can Magnepan survive Wendell Diller?

I'm in agreement with op as to in house upgrade paths. Being an inveterate modder I often can't leave things alone. There have been a number of instances in which I was able to directly contact owner/designer of said equipment to relate my experience with mods. In all cases these owners/designers felt offended that I even felt the need to improve their product. While I can empathize with their perspective of having designed and built a great product, I can't understand their unwillingness to improve it.

Now, in one case I modified an unnamed speaker with upgraded capacitors;  contacted the owner/designer with my findings, no positive response. Low and behold, a few months later those very same speakers had those capacitors in an upgraded version!
Iconoclasts at work here, many of these guys only like their own ideas. While I still modify some of my equipment, I no longer contact manufacture as I don't expect positive response.
I see so much equipment that could be improved by simple parts substitutions, resistance comes from positive reviews and sales figures of stock configuration equipment. I do see some manufacturers are beginning to grasp the idea of high quality parts such that I've  now been able to limit my purchases to equipment that doesn't need my mods.

Winey invented the first Magnepan drivers, back in 1969.         50+ years later: the company is alive, well and prospering nicely.          I've not yet found a piece of audio equipment, that couldn't be improved upon with well chosen/upgraded, component parts and/or some judicious tweaking.         On the other hand: if your business model is working for you, DON'T FIX IT!                                                                                                                                 "Made in America.  Sold in China."

@krelldreams

I am a retired product designer/developer and have a fairly good idea of what it would take to offer a factory upgraded XOver; a second set of picking bins at the XOver assembly station.

Like everyone here you offer good insight from the customers perspective on the issue, but I disagree with other points you make, and so I will address these.

I drive mine to from low to moderately loud volumes, from time to time, with a AHB2 amp. With upgraded cables it sounds as rich and dynamic as a Para A21 or a Bryston. It has all of the power I need. If I got the 3.7i's I’d just use two of them. So this discussion is not about what I'm doing wrong, or all of the old saws we already know about the speaker line, it's about what the factory can do for us as consumers and if there is a need for that.

Another example of where this company lets customers down is contacting them for amp recommendations. They go to great lengths to point out that these speakers require a "special amp" before a purchase, and then tell you that they don’t have time to test amps to tell you which ones work better? How do they know the speakers require a Special Amp if they have listened to some they have rejected?

 A company that makes speakers doesn’t have the time to review amps? What do they do all day at work, watch television? Perhaps they should listen to their speakers with different amps while working? That would require doing two things at once, I know, but I am sure that as a professional courtesy amp companies would provide "loaners" so that they could be on a thumbs up list? Amp arrives on Monday, put in house system and listen for a week or two, ship back to manufacturer. Does that sound like a difficult task to anyone?

There simply is no rhyme or reason to their persnickety behavior, and there are no shortage of complaints about these things on this or other forums regarding this company. I am not the first person to broach this subject, and I know I won't be the last. It's part of Magnepan's job to listen to the consumer, even if it isn’t about how broke they are, that is called only hearing what you want to, and that is the exact opposite of what someone with a marketing background would recommend, in most cases. 
This is how companies stay in business, and why some have to close their doors. Their story isn’t over, so cut me a break on defending abusive behavior, I would prefer a company pretend to be listening to me, and then ignore what I have to say, rather than have them tell me openly to piss off, I'm bothering them. If that's too much to ask of a manufacturer, I must be mistaken about all the companies I have dealt with over the last 65 years where I walked away feeling reassured that I am important to them and that I and others are the reason they have a successful business.

I have a question for the OP...why do you own Maggie's?? Seems like you hate the company so much along with their philosophy, that they should not be playing in your system. I say this, and I don't even own their products, LOL.

I love the concept and would move on to open baffles if I didn’t have planar speakers.

Good enough is a term I dislike. It seems incongruous to me that a speaker company in the high end business should strive for perfection first while paying attention to the bottom line a close second. It stands to reason that you would want to sell as many of your product as possible, and to do this would try and create a product that defines the market.

If I didn’t care about Magnepan, I wouldn’t waste time on them.