Not much, I agree. But enough to get worked up about it, anyway...

The rest of the quote is still erroneous.

"Thing is, the Stereo image concept only works if you're sitting in the sweet spot FOH. Move to the left or right, or significantly back from that spot, and you not only lose the Stereo field and any instruments painstakingly panned left or right, you get a biased listening field (too much lead guitar, too much backing vocals, or Strings, or Tambourine (!) or what have you." (just for appeasing your sense of quote etiquette)

How FAR to the left or right..? How FAR back (at least there you state 'significantly', whatever that means)? If you meant 'stand next to one of the stacks' that's what you should have said. Moving to the left or right does NOT lose the stereo. Period. Until you are SO close to one stack or another that they drown the other out. VERY extreme, and not stated (but perhaps meant)...

The so called 'sweet spot' is at the apex of an equilateral triangle, with the speakers at two corners. Let's say your speakers are 30ft apart. That makes the sweet spot about 25ft out from the stacks. Stand 25 ft in front of one stack, if they are 30ft apart, you can still hear the other stack (try it if you don't believe me).

What you fail to take into account is that, in a real band, the guitarist has a stage rig, the bassist has a stage rig, the keyboard player has a rig, the drummer's gear is up to 6ft wide. Stand close to the stage, and you get an unbalanced sound, too. Doesn't stop anyone from doing it, though, does it? In fact, it adds to the realism ('cos it's REAL ). Why should a stereo rig, trying to emulate a real band be any different?

You weren't panning anything hard left and right, were you? Because that's not realistic in the first place. The guitarist doesn't stand on one edge of the stage and the bass player on the other and the drum kit isn't 20 ft wide... Pan things at 10 to 2, and those close to each stack don't have anywhere NEAR the problem hearing the 'other side'.

If you are trying to sound like a real band, a point source ONLY gives a sense of realism to audience members that are SO far back that they would have got NO positional cues from a real band. And that, my Aussie friend, is a LONG way away..

As for 'elitism', well, in truthfulness, I don't see any more respect from you towards those with opposite views than you are getting. It IS a two way street... And if I try to bolster my arguments with facts that are demonstrably wrong (or incomplete), I don't expect, nor seldom get, much slack. If 'elitism' is simply disagreeing with inaccurate facts, sign me up!