Is directivity like this desirable or is it too wide? Is the extra width around 1,000Hz an advantage or a disadvantage? I could place the mid/tweeter into a waveguide to make everything smooth but does that make the speaker "dry" and boring?
Too wide might be a situation, where your listening distance has to be far away compared to room acoustics and you want to perceive sound that is not dominated by early reflections.
Weirdly written sentence, what I mean is that any width of directivity goes, you just have to position the system suitably. You can compensate for effects of wide directivity conpared to barrow directivity by reducing listening triangle size, which delays and reduces level of early reflections in comparison to direct sound. Basically it's possible to get ~similar perception of sound in a given room with various systems. In this sense, directivity is related to room acoustics and at which distance you want to perceive which sound.
If your positioning is nailed due to practical reasons like "speakers have to be at one wall where the TV is, then there must be carpet and then a sofa other side of the room" -situation, then you'd might want to reduce coverage in order to reduce effect of early reflections to perceived sound, if you want that kinda sound. However, most people seem to prefer the early reflections dominated sound for some reason, which might be the case with you as well so there is no preferred coverage unless you understand what you want to perceive, how is your room acoustics, and what the playback system directivity needs to be in order to provide the perception.
This stuff is not mentioned almost ever, but is cruzial to make sense of any of this. Until then anything goes as long as the directivity is smooth, iow no weird peaks and dips in the power response. There might be some special rules of thumbs here, that "narrow coverage on some kHz helps with something", but this I cannot advice to you as I'm proponent to just smooth directivity as it seems to work very nicely. You might have to study this stuff yourself, which means building several speakers and AB comparing, this is easily multiple year process. If in doubt, try to get smooth directivity, smooth enough response toward listening window, but don't sweat over it. I bet most people don't notice a difference unless pointed or directly AB comparing. And, in the end big part of it is positioning the listening triangle. Max freedom to position the systen is enabled when the speakers are problem free enough so that sound is nice to most important directions. For example bad edge diffraction related interference makes response change per angle, so basically prevents you from proper toe-in, if it matters or not depends on your ability to notice several db undulation in frequency response per angle.
Adjectives like dry and boring might be due to many reasons, which you need to figure out yourself. Personally, I much prefer very involving sound that takes my attention and goes deep within. This is not happening with strong early reflections so in normal domestic acoustics this means either short listening distance or high wide bandwidth DI and needs some care with positioning. I suppose someone might consider this dry and boring because it's not as spacious in standard living room as the early reflection dominated sound most seem to adjust for but it's about room acoustics more than the speakers, you'd need to arragne envelopment somehow to make it spacious. But, the early reflection sound cannot take any involuntary attention from brain so clarity just isn't there, and does not have envelopment but just the hazy spacious sound, so it's good for background music for example, a different thing basically not due to the playback system but howbyour own auditory system processes the information entering ear canal and what perception it provides to you. Early reflection dominated sound is boring to me in comparison what the sound can be when also auditory system is fully involved. Could be boring and not dry, or not boring and dry, depends on how you have positioned the system and how is the room acoustics.
So, you must figure this stuff out yourself what you prefer, and what these adjectives mean, and how your system needs to relate with room acoustics in order to have it. That said, I prefer both sounds and utilize them as I wish. I take a chair for close listen when ever I feel like being sucked into the recording, but most of the time I'm listening the far sound, so I've tried to optimize my system for both which means very smooth directivity and no on-axis issues to enable freedom / proper toe-in for example.
As disclaimer I'm a hobbyist and have not listened on all speakers in the world in all rooms, and the above is just my experience so far which I could change as my experience widens. My main point is to raise awareness on context and how important it is to be able to determine what works and what doesn't, and what matters and what doesn't, what's in between.
It's hard to write at suitable level to make it understandable and relevant, so please do as you feel relevant and perhaps read my posts later on
have fun!
