Let us know when you understand! If TLS says the math is beyond him, then I hope you might stand a better chance as I believe you're an engineer.
As for the effort in ribbons, planars, electrostats being wasted, perhaps so. I have electrostats, and it would be nice to have something similar, but with much superior offaxis response. I suppose, at least historically, this tech was not wasted, because Linkwitz himself says that the Quad ESL 63 was his inspiration to begin with. He says on his webpage:
"The Quad ESL-63 electrostatic loudspeaker has been a strong inspiration to me. I loved the neutrality and realism of its sound the first time I heard it. Peter Walker designed it to act as a dipole point source by breaking up the large radiating surface into circular rings which were then driven from a tapped delay line. Besides having exceptionally low non-linear distortion, this is a speakers which has a minimum phase response. This should be of particular interest to audiophiles who consider 'transient perfect response' - as much as that is physically possible in a band-pass system - to be of importance for their music enjoyment.
The ESL-63 has two prime weaknesses: Its tweeter disc is acoustically large which leads to beaming and a tight sweet spot. It has limited low frequency output volume and overall dynamic range. I like to listen at near realistic sound levels and so my goal was to design a speaker that preserves the admirable characteristics of this one and some other planar speakers, but without their shortcomings."
Besides: I'm certain that Harmon Kardon has the funds to hire someone who can do the math. To be able to remove the enclosure while simultaneously improving performance would seem well worth (in savings on manufacturing and cost of shipping) the added cost of design.
Sure, but the real question is do they think it's still* worth it in terms of economics and marketing. I mean, c'mon, having 4 drivers visible from the backside is not exactly sexy. Now, what, do we need no less than 8 amp channels to run just a stereo pair? Or is it 6? With HT taking over the stereo world in market share, big time, then you have economies of scale to deal with. So, on a smaller scale, should they just include 4 pairs of Crown commercial amps? Nah, they need to be consumer amps for the mainstream, and I can tell you that as an owner of a Crown.
Also, I think Sean Olive said at AH about electrostats: you can't squeeze blood from a stone. I bet it has to do with the offaxis response (as Linkwitz was talking about).
Anyways to continue, for these dipoles to work well, they will need ample space from boundaries, and I would say considerably more space than even over 99% of AHers are willing to do, nevermind the mainstream public.