Agreed - although they seem to be direct decedents of starting out their heritage with Car Audio and haven't changed in their specs much.... To me it seems they do very well in smaller sealed designs, PR - otherwise they jump way the hell up in box size for ported.... which as stated not everyone can accomodate....
I have yet to find a driver that matches them in SQ though, and I have had many.... JL's are very close - the LMS's are just that next step.... Which also tends to bring out higher levels of SPL to adjust for the lack of distortion, requiring more output then the same size higher distortion drivers...
BTW - I wouldn't say they need tons of heavy EQ for every application - that is generally a room dependent give and take.
I am running my new sealed 18" LMS with a EP2500 (1800w) in a smallish room (1800 cu ft) corner loaded, and I'm gettin very good room coupling (low end gain) which allows me little EQ to get flat down to 10hz, yet I still have plenty of headroom to boot...