I'm on the east coast, in New Brunswick for now, yes we have Future Shops, but no A&B sound. I spend lots of time in Toronto, Edmonton/Red Deer, and Winnipeg though so I'm familiar with them.

Regarding Totem: They have a good following and are highly successful in their market at what they do. I'm a fan of about 1/2 their models, and their prices aren't so bad. Mind you, most retailers I know cut quite a bit off the price, so maybe mark-up is high?

I actually visited them in Montreal though, and they have enjoyed tremendous growth internationally with the expansion of home theater, and have a fairly loyal following. They're small scale though. I agree that the do seek to add value in lovely cabinetry, but there's a portion of the audio community that does look for that. I'd love some fancy veneers, but at the rate I still waste, I'll stick with cheaper Canadian woods.

As for the environments in best buy. It's pretty hard to relatively compare the soundstage, and imaging capabilities of a speaker system when they are placed 10 feet apart, in a 6 foot deep room, at different heights, crammed against a wall. Sure, all the speakers suffer, but it's inaccurate to say that these compromised conditions treat all speakers the same. My Studio's 40's, for example, require a toe in to sound their best, while my ar.com DIY's sound phenomenal with none at all...great off-axis response. My Axiom M3Ti's need more toe-in than I'd ever give a speaker, but when set up properly, they sound acceptable. My point is, some speakers could be more forgiving of the environment. Every Maggie I've ever heard requires more trial and error with placement than most speakers I demo to sound good.

RGA, as far as your possible home theater goes, I've got an honest suggestion for you...try the BR-1 DIY kit from Parts Express. For $140 US (roughly the price of Atoms) plus a bit of shipping, duty, etc you will buy a pair of speakers that are far superior to the Atoms, Mini Monitors, and the Energy C-3's (I've personally head-to-heads against all 3) and I don't lie when I say any other speaker I've heard under $450. They're not pretty but they sound exceptional for the price.
What's more, the skills/tools required are very minimal, the desigin philosophy is simple, and this would be a great practice run for you before building an AN E kit or something.
For home theater on a budget, you simply cannot beat 5 or 6 of these...I'm quite tempted to do this for my mom and dad to upgrade them from the Atom/Titan system they have now..