Do high end manufacturers need retail outlets?

A big side benefit of having dealers is they carry multiple brands.  You get exposed to something you may never have considered if everything was just available direct with no dealers.  Not to mention their experience and knowledge with all the gear they sell and what synergy there is between the gear.  Unfortunately not all dealers are great, but a great dealer IME is invaluable.

If you’re buying Macintosh B&w, marantz, Sony the new dealer is a good thing.

The whole issue here is the exceptionally over priced high end audio gear that exists which is not widely available. Most people buy on faith having never heard it. The high end industry takes advantage of those ultra rich people who don’t really care and would gullibly pay the higher price. The wealthy just don’t know no better.

So blame the rich people for the high prices. Not much of it is made and there’s more than enough wealthy people to buy it all. It never is available used because really rich people don’t have the time to sell older gear that was upgraded and now no longer use it.

"And I *definitely* hate paying an online retailer full MSRP (or nearly that) for something that's simply going to be shipped to me. Might as well buy 2nd hand higher-tier gear at that point."

Absolutely!!!   I have purchased some of my best gear used, otherwise I could never have afforded it  Example:  Zesto Leto preamp.  New $7500 , used $3500

If possible, I prefer the ability to actual listen to equipment before buying. If a direct to consumer brand can do that at a reasonable cost, I'm open to listening to equipment that way, but their marketing, professional reviews and consumer reviews need to be spot on for me to consider dropping $100+ to pay for an in-home demo.

I listened to 11 pairs of speakers when I last bought a pair of speakers in Jan 2020 and it was definitely worth my time to do so. 6 of the 11 speakers would have been non-starters in my system and for my listening preferences. 3 other speakers were not ideal. 2 speakers best fit my preferences. Both were Monitor Audio speakers. I couldn't have figured that out with as little effort by getting these speakers shipped to  me by mail.

It would be great if a local dealer had the merchandise but the manufacturers make the dealers buy the equipment before they can show it to you, horrifying.

So manufacturers need to figure out a better way to sell much better gear then is available to the mass market. You can’t see it you can’t hear it you buy it you can’t return it and the dealer profits 30 to 40%. And then when you want to sell it you got to take a mark down by 50%.

It’s incredibly difficult to listen to gear  that is very unlike the room you’re going to use.

The market needs to change. They also need to improve the communication of the high points of gear that is being sold. Marketing descriptions of gear leave a lot to be desired. They are most often not helpful.