I have two thoughts as to the reaction to the bass. I don't know if either are true, but first the listening position might have been in a null somewhere around 30Hz. In particular with movie effects (and a good selection of modern/synthesized music), that is where the meat of the bottom end resides. Would explain the good measurements but lesser in-room results.
Second, it might just be the servo woofers in comparison to just about everything else. The servo control on those woofers makes them capable of stopping on a dime and giving you change. Other subwoofers comparatively often have quite a bit of overhang in the driver after hitting a note having to come to rest, made worse in that just as often the next bass note hits before the driver has a chance to completely stop. Generally, this will be a muddied detail in the bass that a lot of even really good subwoofers can miss, but that overhang also adds to output which due to the room is already on an upward curve as the room loads with the end result being the impression of "more" bass. Although there are still some box colorations present in this or any boxed (sub)woofer design, the construction on the E3's is such that the only way to do much better in that regard would be to OB the bass to get rid of it altogether, which of course leads to its own set of compromises, and is outside the context of the design of the E3 in particular.
Now, if the criticism was in regards to transient peaks in the bass, as the top of the speaker is more efficient than the bottom, depending on how loud the speakers were being played, maybe the reviewer was just running out of headroom on the plate amps (reference level/rock concert level volume?).
Regardless, with the positive feedback in the review of the QUALITY of the bass, the nice thing about the bass on the E3 is that you're only a couple of additional matching subwoofers away to having as much bass as you would like or can handle.
