so bass traps in corners do nothing, it seems we have been fooled. or are being fooled.

The bass traps in corners are typically more like upper bass / lower midrange traps. That's an important and problematic range in a lot of rooms, and a reasonable amount of traps in the corners  can definitely improve the clarity in that range, which can add perceived definition to lower bass and sub-bass, since the overtones are easier to hear than the fundamentals down there, and our ability to perceive start and stop times is much more accurate above 100 Hz than down lower. A lot of people think of under 60 Hz as bass, but that's more like sub-bass, and that's very impractical to control with added acoustic absorbers. 

Below 60Hz is sub-bass? The lowest frequency produced by a standard 4-string bass (acoustic and electric; why do people insist on calling an electric bass a bass "guitar"? That’s an oxymoron!)---the E string played "open"---is 41Hz. That’s not sub-bass, that’s bass.

1+ jmalen123

My Tennessee systems page has room responses before and after bass traps. Mine are huge because i had the space to bulk them up. That helped quite a bit. Most times we have little real estate to work with. 

If you think that's crazy, wait until I tell you that cables don't matter.