Sorry to bump an old thread but I've been reading a lot about the how a room effects sound recently which lead me to here and I have to agree with you 110%, I believe a room should be completely inert/dead, I can hear the room in my sound I it really bothers me.
I think a good comparison for those who like their room to be 'live' is the same people that don't like their TV to be calibrated to reference levels as it doesn't 'pop' as they believe it should, many people like their displays to be vivid and overly saturated, and in particular the whites set way too cold, they believe it 'enhances' the experience, gives it that extra zing. Personally I really dislike the TV getting in the way of my viewing experience, just as I don't like my room getting in the way of my audible experience, the only ambiance I want to hear is what is included on the recording, not my walls, if you listen to a track like this on headphones for example,
You can clearly feel the ambiance and scale of the Notre-Dame Cathedral through the recorded reverb, I don't need reflections for that, headphones are a prime example of that, otherwise they would also sound 'dead', imo humble opinion a heavily treated room and speaker toed in towards the listener will provide you with a much closer sound to the original recording with the reverb or ambiance in the track being
more empathised rather than being de-empathised by your room.
For example,
https://www.soundonsound.com/sound-advice/q-why-does-reverb-sound-different-headphones
This gentleman is explaining why people tend to hear reverb more when listening to music on headphones as opposed to speakers, but he also makes an interesting observation regarding treated rooms and reverb,
"I’ve also found a similar effect (enhanced reverb) with some monitoring speakers combined with over-damped listening rooms"
.