Did I Expect too much?

My experience with a few friends that were store owners or tech guys, was that many/most products seem to have some very surprisingly inexpensive parts inside...

Some manufacturers and individuals believe parts is parts, go to diy audio forums and you'll find vast majority believe measurements tell the whole story. Techies, designers, EE mostly concerned about circuits meeting certain design criteria, most of that has nothing to do with sound quality. Perhaps there is a listening panel or individual, why would you expect them to have golden ears.  As a modifier/parts changer I've been inside much equipment, use of generic parts is standard operating procedure. This is reason I no longer purchase most audio components from large corporations, I've found the smaller boutique manufacturers far more engaged with their products sound quality and using boutique parts is part of their voicing process.

I get the parts cost argument, and this may be true for some manufacturers. So,  lets say you're going to use a crap load of cheap Chinese resistors because you can get them for .20 cents apiece, this vs. Takman or other reputable resistor, perhaps these closer to $1 apiece, so I'll be generous and say there's fifty of these, so you're telling me that extra cost is not viable! Just for one example, Prima Luna uses the Takman throughout their amps and pre's, these products relatively lower priced in world of high end. The use of cheap parts in crossovers with their relatively low parts count is even more inexplicable.

SNS:  You hit it right on the head.  It’s the reason I had Min Yang at Tube Audio Labs make my 300b.  We collaborated on the best transformers, capacitors etc and  it was nor more expensive since there were no middlemen or retailers to mark up the costs

Companies like PS Audio can give better value for the money spent by selling direct to the customer. They benifit by getting a higher price but the customer also benefits by not paying for the middleman/distributor mark ups. A win/win

I liked the Charney Companion speaker I heard with the AER BD3 driver.  This is a very lively sounding system with a surprisingly rich sound, not the sort of lean and mean sound one use to hear in single driver systems, and the top end was reasonably smooth and extended.  I am betting you will like your speakers a lot after break in.  I heard both Companion speakers (one had the AER driver, the other had a Voxativ) driven by single ended 300B amps.  The combination worked very well.  The little bit of extra lower midrange and upper bass that 300B amps typically provide would help most single driver systems.

Working with custom builders is a good way to get just what you want from your amp, including the choice of premium parts.  As for your speakers, there is really not much you can do for DIY upgrade of a speaker without a crossover, except to change wire and binding post as you have done.  How about going completely nuts and putting a BD5 in your speaker?