Bose actually uses a specific kind of paper and paper treatment in their drivers, treated (I've dismantled down to the driver, though this was one of the Jewel Cube configured enclosures) and it is a very stiff, quality paper.
The magnet is actually quite large. Larger than the height of the basket enclosing the voice-coil and spider and driver added up. The "cheap plastic" is actually of a definite higher grade than you would find on Panasonic HTiB systems, or the like.
The wire is actually a custom gauge wire that's thicker than sixteen gauge, but not quite fourteen gauge. The internal wire is either the same or thicker gauge, and the wires themselves are covered with a porous plastic/foam sleeve (the ones used in quality audio equipment containing air moving components in the same space as wire as to not cause any vibration and/or turbulence).
Bose products actually carry quite a bit of quality - overpriced- but great quality in the right places.
Peace
Well, I'm not going to argue too much on the details. However, my point is that Bose uses cheap materials.
Paper is still paper. Whether or not it has been treated, it is less rigid and far weaker than other materials, like kevlar, titanium, aluminum, etc. Even silk is superior. And paper is far cheaper than any of the materials I mentioned.
As for plastic, I'd say it is one of the poorer choices, if not the poorest choice, for an enclosure. It is is not dense, inert material. It resonates and introduces distortion. I'm not an expert or sound engineer, so I might be poor at explaining this, but the enclosure should generally be acoustically inert. The plastic enclosures of Bose aren't.
As I said, Bose is what it is. Cheap speakers that masquerade as high quality ones. For the price of a Bose Acoustimass system, you could get speakers from Energy, Paradigm, PSB, Mirage, NHT, KEF or many others that are higher quality and more importantly, sound better. And for the price of a Lifestyle system, you could get into some seriously good quality, that would blow the doors off of the Bose. Hell, for 4k(price of a Lifestyle), you could do a very good Integra or Denon receiver, Oppo dvd player, and still have over 2500 for speakers. For that much, you could even get into NAD or Rotel.
I don't like Bose myself, but I think we're getting a little bit OTT in this thread. As far as sub/sat packages go, Bose are actually really rather good, but they're definitely not the best, and they are overpriced.
As for B&O, I'll defend them almost to the end of the earth (although there are one or two things stopping me from doing that all the way). Yes, I'd agree with your statement with some of the speakers in the range, but their newer speakers (BeoLab 5, BeoLab 9) truly are phenominal speakers. In fact, I haven't heard anything that images as well as their BeoLab 5, or reaches anywhere near the same dynamics and overall power (good dynamic music on these will have you jumping out of your seat). Their new BeoLab 9s are also amazingly good speakers, and both models pitch very very very well against other models, and often outperform speakers costing many times more (BeoLab 5s outperform a pair of B&W 800Ds, despite the fact that the B&Ws cost £13k a pop without amplifiers, and the BeoLab 5s are ~£12k a pair with amplifiers (and very good ones at that).
I'd agree with you in some respects though, their column speakers are beautifully built, but the components are not up to it and as a result, they're outperformed by speakers costing much less. Still nice bits of kit though, some people love them, I don't.
I actually like B&O. I love their design and integration. I would definitely consider them a high end company. Their prices certainly are. Which is the problem... you can usually find much better value from other brands. Leading to the question; how much is style worth? I haven't heard the new Beolabs, but my past experience is that B&O speakers sound very clean and precise, but lack punch and low end. Very much suited for classical music. Similar to Canton speakers.
As for B&W speakers, I used to love them. LOVE them. However as they went big, I feel they have lost some of the magic they once had. Their speakers seem a lot brighter now. I prefer the warmth and balance of the older models. They still make some great speakers, but they also make some very mediocre ones. When I did some direct comparisons, I thought that Dynaudios sounded better across the board. The honor of the best imaging speakers I've ever heard goes to Magnepan. Sadly, I don't have the space for them.
And getting back to the original post, I'm guessing that the poster is not in the market for a $25k system. Though a 25k B&O system (or any other brand really) will sound like angels in heaven compared to a Bose. And really, when your getting into that price range, all the speakers sound pretty damn good, as they should.
The only people I've met with similar fervor have all worked for the company.
