Even with critical listening, I believe individual rooms together with listener preferences drive speaker/room/listener compatibility...not the absolute size of the room or speakers. I have a pair of large, 3-way Aerial Acoustic speakers in a 10x11 untreated room and dearly love what they produce. I hesitated to even attempt this setup initially, but was very pleasantly surprised by the results. Very!
I also have a 23x27 room and my Philharmonic Phil 2's (similar in size and output to the AA's), out in the room, bass traps, etc....sing beautifully there, too.
And so as not to get too far off topic, let me toss out a personal rave for all things Salk. In our big GTG out here on the Oregon Coast, we were privileged to enjoy and compare 4 different Salk speakers. Here are 3 of them in a 13x19 room...all sounding wonderful (ESPECIALLY the very large SoundScape 12s, as any of the 50 attendees will attest to) ...
The SongTowers were wonderful and performed way over their price range...at least the speaker price range that I was familiar with. And certainly were superior to the Kestrels I had heard in output and clarity.
It's my belief that you can't go too large with speakers for that room of yours. I'd get the largest (within reason) speakers you can afford. And if you want forever speakers, go with anything made by Jim Salk or designed by Dennis Murphy.
Good luck with your search. And remember, it's your ears that count.