They operate on that weird reflecting/direct technology gimmick, don't they?
Maybe they're not suppose to measure flat?

Personally, I've always found FR to be somewhat over-rated. I've heard speakers that measure poorly (ie: +2/-9 dB) sound okay.. The key is the -9 dB and where it was at in the spectrum. I gave the speaker soundstage a sense of depth in the midrange.
Sometimes it was a bit annoying, most of the time you couldn't tell though. I think errors of addition are worse than errors of omission in that case. A +9 dB peak would probably make the same speaker unlistenable.

I'm just saying, maybe that's a sound people like, and is exactly what Bose is trying to do?

A few years back Parts Express was selling the Bose drivers they bought out for $0.15 or so...I can measure those if anyone has any?