Calling for recommendations: Speakers for a very lively room

To my dismay, I recently returned a set of Zu Omen Dirty Weekends to the manufacturer.

I spent a solid sixty days moving the speakers through my room, re-organizing my room, moving inexpensive panels and blankets and cushions into various reflection points, and occasionally the DW's would do what they were supposed to do: creating a sublimely vivid soundstage and lifelike musical forms... 

Unfortunately, it was like that "good time" you can never pin down, it just doesn't hold steady long enough to do its thing consistently, and the speakers mostly muddied my ears, or sheared them off. The room was the apparent culprit, with one large window on the north side, a three glass-door closet on the west wall, and a fireplace on the east wall.

It was disappointing and I can say that the speakers would give me just enough of a feeling for what they could do to push me to try 'one more thing' but in the end, I could see that the next step was heavy investment in professional tiles, absorbers, diffusers with no real understanding of what would address the problem. I was also 'out of time' and didn't want to find myself an owner of a set of speakers I couldn't control. Gerrit at Zu, a very helpful fellow, also offered the observation that a room treatment might solve one problem only to introduce another.

I appreciate a guy who sees how one move implies another. 

So, I'm looking around for something else...

I'm thinking bookshelf speakers might be better. One friend offered the observation that a more directional speaker is needed, perhaps something with a horn. That makes sense... What do you all think? I'd like to keep the price at the limit of what I spent on the DW's: about $1300 (I had the Jupiter caps installed). Frankly, I'm seeing many options in the bookshelf category that look attractive at $500, like the Klipsch RP600M, for instance. I'm not sure how that speaker would fit/sound in my room...

Thanks in advance!