I find it interesting that you assume all of the above are engineering driven. I think a more feasible argument is that they are marketing driven. All of those qualities you listed are more associated with high-end mythology than actual best practices for good speaker design (from an audio engineering perspective, especially according to much of the research cited at ASR). As to why engineers would work at a place where marketing drives much of the design, that is true in most consumer related industries. Regarding WA, that is an interesting company. Its strongest acolytes swore its speakers were the best sounding product for yrs. Yet, about 5-15 yrs ago, WA dramatically changed its house sound, but most of these WA acolytes still claimed their speakers were the best sounding product produced. One would assume that those who preferred the initial WA house sound would be reticent of continuing to embrace WA, but it did not seem to be the case. Is the WA following audio reproduction related? Are there other factors driving its position in the market?
As to Amir's liking of the Tots, it is not totally surprising. He like many others have expressed that they enjoy speakers that are able to reproduce fairly large dynamic swings in music reproduction (he really enjoyed a pair of JBL's that did not measure great, but exhibited great dynamics). I would not be surprised if the Tots are able to handle dynamics better than most speakers its size (good dynamics reproduction does seem to be a sonic pursuit of WA).
Your pursuit to justify the "engineering" decisions for the TuneTots are not based on any facts in evidence, and such argumentation would require some strong evidence in your part to support it, but you do not seem to have either the insider insight (i.e. factually know the engineering goals of WA) or the audio engineering understanding to support your claims. If you seek to understand why many purchasers (and Amir) have expressed positive impressions after hearing the TuneTots, a far better approach to try and understand it would be understanding the flaws of sighted listening (there is a lot of research in this area), the flaws of drawing conclusions from one individual's impression, the role Amir's age may have in expressing preference (Dr. Toole no longer participates in audio evaluation of speakers because he recognizes the quality of his hearing has diminished with age), a personal preference for the excellent dynamics the TuneTots exhibit, and so on.
PS There is a question that has not been raised, but I think may be very pertinent in speaker preference. How the manner in which we listen to music affects speaker preference; i.e. the role of Fletcher-Munson Curve in our perceived preferences.
@DWI has stated that he prefers to listen to music at low volumes. Assuming all other factors are equal, would he not prefer a speaker that tilts its frequency response in a manner that in some way addresses our auditory experience as explained by the curve? I think I will start a thread asking this question.
