Hi,
Welcome to the forum.. Wishing that we all will learn from each other.
I agree with all what you said regarding the design process.. just not with the infuriatingly expensive part. One can do good crossover design with FIR filtering and linear phase crossovers with free resources like equalizer apo running on a PC and a decent sound card.. or so has been my experience.. Have a look at this project of mine if you are interested:
I went finally with a series crossover as parallel type was getting difficult to control the 2khz hump even with a contour filter. I have to finally measure them after implementing them - one channel. I have listened whole day today and did not notice any issue- though my listening skills are...
www.hifivision.com
This is one of my DSP active speaker configurations:
Crossover
System measured polar responses out to 180 degrees (Nearfield+ gated farfield)
Measured impulse and step responses in room
I implement crossover + driver passband linearization EQ combined and baked into 64K tap FIR filters and use the convolver in EQ apo to get the above results..