Horns get a bad rap...

[E-Stat]

I wasn't in the hobby in Altec's day...

I remember how disappointed I was when I first heard A7s. Hollow midrange, steely top end, with no real low end at all. Far from transparent.

but I have to wonder if you've heard the Array series in JBL?

I have not. I did, however, look them up.

Designed to Impress

What you say about preferences is certainly true. As for me, I prefer speakers that are "designed to disappear". My reference point is using no speaker at all. Here you have yet another two way horn stretching the output of a large (14") woofer to reach a horn. The specs illustrate what I find to be their troubling characteristics: inconsistent directivity and poor driver blending at the crossover. Notice how they describe the response:

"Low Frequency Transducer:600 W AES, 50 Hz to 500 Hz
High Frequency Transducer: 75 W AES, 1kHz to 10kHz"

They may be "lively", but who needs the octave from 500 hz to 1khz anyway?