can subwoofers make things worse?

Sudnh

I love it...." the simple folks "  yes indeed 

YES.  Other than truck/car audio and HT the money spent on subs could be added to a speaker budget and if one's strapped for cash there's plenty of used, floor standing active speakers out there that will deliver the goods and take less floor space.

@sudnh Note he did not say SVS was a one-note boom sub and said it was capable of doing bass tonality.  In general are they as good as REL or Rythmik in that area, no.  But neither are they a one-note boom box as you imply.  That he lumps JL Audio in the same camp as SVS seems pretty silly BTW.  And it’s also ridiculous to imply if a sub is musical it can’t slam.  I’ve heard Rhythmik subs and they sure as hell can slam, so that’s just total BS — a good sub can do both musicality and slam and they are not mutually exclusive.  Of course it’s all about integration, and a well-integrated SVS sub can sound great and certainly not a one-dimensional boom box.  I can point to ten other reviews where experienced reviewers got great results for music with SVS subs, and not one of them categorized them as one-note boom boxes.  This reviewer didn’t say that either — he was just over generalizing to make a point.  Your assertion that SVS is all about boom is misguided and misleading, and there’s plenty of evidence in the form of other reviews to back that up.  I have an SB2000 and it is NOT just a boom boom sub if properly integrated.  Is it state of the art?  No, of course not, but it’s not what you call it either.

That video was interesting and captured the fundamental difference in subwoofer approaches.  While I generally avoid subwoofers, I have helped with installations using them and I agree that REL is good at integrating the woofer with the main system (both effective and easy to accomplish). 
I have also heard SWARM subwoofers integrate well (not surprising because they employ many subwoofers to distribute room nodes).

@larryi 

+1