Couldn't it be that these speakers are exactly for driving in a straight line? Like a dragster...
(I like your directivity/driving in a straight line analogy) They don't have good off-axis properties, but they do have 1.15kW of amplification on board and they cost $2400 or something. I doubt there's many speakers this size out there that have that kind of headroom, at this price point, while maintaining some degree of "studio" quality to the sound, albeit with sub-optimal directivity.
Like others, I'm not trying to defend Dynaudio and/or poor design, it's just that a product like this (or the Core 59, actually) still has appeal to me - up until the point I hear it and go "nope... the internet was right" of course