Indeed, I agree on all accounts. In my defense: it's a 2012 model, so I had fewer kids at that point... and even at that, the iMac was initially hiding in my bedroom on a bar-height "standing desk." It has since migrated to a more traditional desk in a "home office" type of environment, in order to satisfy my wife's aesthetic sensibilities... I clearly should have put more effort into resisting that move.
But I stand by my assessment: The HomePod clearly would not be at home, shoved up in the corner on a high shelf. Rather, it's design and aesthetics simply scream out to be placed front-and-center in a living room or the like... which would be right in the middle of the "play area" in my own house.
And I have no doubt that Apple put incredible efforts into optimizing that speaker array... but if I were ever going to consider this type of tech for my own house, my preferred choice would likely be a compact unit with cheap (or no) speakers, with an external output which I could hook up to a more traditional stereo system with wall mounted speakers. Because if I'm going to put the speakers up on the wall anyway, they may as well be speakers which were intended for that kind of placement.
