Ah yes. It reminds me of the days that I used to deal with the guys that were buying Ferraris. They would sit on a waiting list (1 year) and someone would cancel the order. They could get a car about 1 year earlier but they would piss and moan about the color.
My response was simple. When you're sitting in the drivers seat you can't see the color of the car. Why do you REALLY care? You own these cars to drive not to stare at. The look was always 
Priceless!
I take it a step farther than that. I can't see what the outside of a car looks like while I'm actually using it. I don't buy a car to admire it while it sits in the driveway either.
So, if I buy a car because of its looks, I'm really buying it for _other people_ to look at.
I'd be perfectly happy buying a car with body by Fisher-Price. That plastic they use is indestructible. I don't need glossy paint or anything like that. In fact, it would cost a lot less to get a fender bender repaired if we didn't worry about matching colors and getting everything all shiny again.
Getting back to speakers, my Nathans are gloss black. To a large extent, I think function forced form with these, and the rest was forced by cost. (The size of the front baffle, shape of the waveguide, radiused edges, and things like that were forced by function, as was the size of the enclosure. Cost governed the shape of the enclosure sides and back.)
I would be just as happy with a matte finish, and in fact for years my main speakers were ones with a matte finish. I built them from plans and drivers, and I really wanted to listen to them, but when I got to painting them the weather was really humid and they took forever to dry. I lost patience and just assembled them and started to use them. I never got around to putting more coats of paint on or anything.
The Nathans are not ugly, but they don't pretend to be furniture or techno-sculpture like some other speakers do. They also don't cost $150K.
I think it's a pretty good trade-off.
