Yes, that was David Smith's interpretation, not mine - and he explicitly says in the rest of the quote (that I didn't include) that he thinks dr.
@Floyd Toole moved towards emphasizing room curves later on, in spite of the findings from his early NRC studies.
But I do think dr. Toole has beeen indicating here on the forum that room curves are not the most important thing in itself - that they rather are a function of a well-performing speaker? Which would roughly mean that "a well-performing speaker a decent room curve makes", but that "retro-fitting a decent room curve doesn't a well-performing speaker make". Better to let the Dr. explain it himself!
What I do think one can see from both dr. Toole's research and other studies, is that a
wide directivity is often preferred by many listeners - as it increases envelopment etc, and this is often perceived as more important than razor sharp stereo imaging. I tend to agree with
@Cosmik that the directivity pattern of the loudspeaker is the one area in sound reproduction where there's no "right" answer as to what fidelity would entail.