I heard the Acora speakers at the Pacific Audio Fest last summer and they sounded very good. They were in a large room which made them look small but they produced some of the best sound at the show.
I've been to three audio shows in the last several years and I've concluded that I don't care what speakers are made of. I also don't care if they use 4th order crossovers or if they deposit diamond dust on their tweeters in a cyclotron particle accelerator. I've heard exotic speakers that sound great and I've heard conventional speakers that sound great. I've also concluded that speaker prices do not correlate well to their sound quality. I could easily live with the Acoras based on what I heard but there are a lot of other speakers these days that sound fantastic - many for far less money than the Acoras.
@ronboco +1 Any list like this is always going to miss a few outstanding candidates but leaving out any Rockport speakers gives this exercise a a pretty big credibility problem. The other glaring omission is the MBL 101 E Mk. II.