With the right drivers, you can build a high sensitivity 2-way. While there's no perfect speaker (at any price) you'll always have to make trade offs.
A simple example of a high efficiency 2-way speaker is Hawthorne Silver Iris (96 dB/w/m, 40 - 20,000 Hz, open baffle, easily DIY'd for under $500/pair with their baffle kit). The baffle is barely bigger than the driver.
More simple examples: Tekton and Zu each make several high efficiency 2-way towers starting at $650/pair that go just a low or lower; and of course Klipsch is a great example of old school design from back in the day when all amps were low wattage.
Do these make sense? That's in the eye of the beholder.
Note higher efficiency drivers are usually more "colored" (less neutral) and revealing of system flaws/self-noise.