I guess it all depends on your budget and what a person is going for. I have three systems and none of them came close to costing a grand. And they all sound very good. I don't use REW or anything like that for room correction. I simply use a regular old graphic EQ and my ears.
The living room system has Scott 166 speakers, which use the Philips tweeter. I have three different sets of speakers that use that same tweeter. Not a ton of bottom end on that system but that is OK. I still enjoy it all of the time. Otherwise the three other sets of speakers all have 8" woofers instead of the 6.5" woofers in the Scotts. Punch up the lowest two bands on the ten band EQ and they have plenty of bass for sure.
And I have to agree that back in the day we had no need for REW or anything like that. I do remember my very first system which consisted of a Technics SU-V2 at 40 WPC, a pair of Speakerlab 1's and a Dual 506 turntable. I thought I should get an Audio Control ten band EQ that came with a pink noise generator and a small microphone. Ran that and it turned out that the speakers were flat except for the very low end due to the 8" woofer. Sold the EQ, bumped the bass knob up a small amount and that was it. I still own those speakers and listen to them to this day.
Pretty sure I could set up a really good system for well under a grand. But then again, it depends on what the end user wants. My simplest system (the living room) is just a MCS 3872 integrated amplifier connected to those Scott 166 speakers and the source is a Panasonic portable CD player. Total cost was definitely under $400. Probably just over $300 in fact.
So what does one really need?
