Tom - I prefer to consider the room as a separate entity due mostly to how our aural neurology manages the inputs. Signals less than 5 to 10 milliseconds are conflated into a single onset transient. The longer that initial signal emanates, the more slurred the transient sounds. Longer delays are clearly understood as reflections and the geometry and contents of the room are associated with those reflections and carry relatively low weight in synthesizing the sonic event.
Rooms contribute much more than most people give credit. Room acoustics and treatment brings far more value than most folks think. But, the speaker-maker must draw his line somewhere. In the early days, we spent lots of effort deciding between directional, omni, bi or di pole radiation, etc. We landed on a broad polar pattern that mimics (fairly well) how a real singer or acoustic instrument radiates into the room. Thiel's relatively omni-directionality makes nearby room objects more important than many other polar patterns. But we believe it produces the most natural presentation. YMMV. So, for Thiel, the first side-wall or ceiling/floor reflection is more important than with a pro speaker that limits dispersion to 120°. Beyond that, I have found that diffusion techniques solve lots of problems without the down-sides of absorption.
I don't know how much laminar flow would help the room because of the low energy of each of the wavefronts that meet room objects. At the speaker, especially at the driver / source, the wavefront energy approaches the sheer strength of air - so propagation management matters a lot there, but less-so the farther it gets from the source. At least that's my layman's understanding of the territory.
