Audioengr: your comment "The crossover was designed to have identical signals at both the woofer and tweeter input circuits" would only apply to a speaker that offered bi-wiring as an "after the fact" attempt at marketing features. The above would not apply to a product that was designed for truly optimized performance under optimized conditions. Whether or not the mass majority of bi-wirable speakers are of this nature would be another matter. I just wanted to point this out for future reference.
As a side note, a crossover network is nothing more than a voltage dividing network based upon frequency. As such, minimizing the amount of stress placed upon any individual component by removing some of the signal that it might have to pass would typically be considered a "good thing". I am talking about both thermal and saturation factors here. I can see no technical drawback to "true" bi-wiring so long as the signals presented to both the top and bottom section of the speaker are in phase with each other and the total series resistance of both cables remains equal to or less than a single cable.
As always, i would love to compare notes on the subject with those that have varying points of view so as to widen my grasp of the subject. Sean
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PS... Does anyone know what the first ( one cabinet ) speaker was to make use of multiple binding posts, specifically for the use of bi-amping or bi-wiring ? I have my ideas, but i'd like to see if anyone else has another answer.