A few comments pertinent to your questions:
The Druids are 50" tall and just under a foot wide, so there's no getting away from their standing profile. However Druid's visual weight on the room is moderated by the slender depth. This makes the speaker seem smaller than it is, and its lack of bulk translates to comparative elegance that has a much higher spouse acceptance factor than I would have imagined. Women or men who prioritize style & aesthetics over function tend to love the Druid's design, and then appreciate its rewards sonically. It's the perceptually smallest "big" speaker around. If budget allows, color can have a big influence on perceived size in the context of your decor.
While the Druid isn't as placement insensitive as the more expensive Definition, it is among the least room and placement sensitive speakers I've heard. You can stuff it into a corner and you will get only a fraction of the bass exaggeration experience has taught you to expect. And they do well close to walls, keeping in mind that the aluminum base plate ensures that even if pushed against the base of a wall, the speaker itself will be positioned a few inches out from the wall surface.
Toe-in warrants experimentation as small angular changes relative to the listening chair have noticeable effects on soundstaging and imaging focus or precision. My Druids are placed close to a wall, with the right speaker about 30" from a corner point, and both sitting 16" from the back wall surface to the box edge closest to that wall on toe-in.
My experience with the Druid is that bass is much more affected by tuning the height of the floor-to-base-plate gap than by standing them near a corner. The qualitative adjustments to the bass performance and bass detail quality are a big influence on the overall performance of the Druid. Sean Casey recommends adjusting the floor gap to the thickness of 2 CD jewelboxes if the Druids are used directly on a hardwood floor. He's right, by the way. Carpet and other floor types bear some experimentation. Clearly, for me, getting the Grieve model to perform as intended is considerably more important to tonal character than proximity to walls.
The Druid isn't just a solo performer or chamber music or jazz trio speaker. While it does a great job of communicating the emotion and intimacy of such performances, it is easily just as noteworthy for its ability to pour acoustic power in the room. The dynamic range is real, against modest power requirements to do it. And more important, dynamics come with an exceptional trait for maintaining clarity of details and transient events no matter how much complexity and crescendo is introduced. Play something you know that begins simply and builds to dense, intense complexity. If the simple line of the first one or two instruments or voices persist in the performance, you hear it present and accounted for irrespective of accumulating density, volume and complexity.
Phil
Three questions for Druid owners (thank you in advance!!):
- How big/massive do they appear? I'm having a problem with an overcrowded living room (from a certain person's perspective, you can guess who.) 
My current speakers are walnut-finished B&Ws, pretty boxy looking, 35" high x 11" wide, 16" deep. The Druids are 15" higher, and the same width, but much less deep. Do they seem like they could appear less massive, or is this just wishful thinking?
- Another solution to the overcrowding probl ...
