2 channel playback is the simplest form of stereo. Listening tests suggest that people generally prefer two or more speakers to a single speaker even when listening to mono recordings. Even for a person deaf in one ear there may be perceivable benefits to having more speakers in a room. It might help to smooth out some serious peaks and dips in the response, or mask some of the room’s characteristic sound.
As for trying alternate approaches to putting sound in a room, I’m not above trying unorthodox arrangements. I’ve gotten interesting results by putting the tweeters very close together in the front, with the midrange drivers spaced wider and the upper bass even wider still. Of course it sounds very different. There was a lot to like about it even if it was strange in some ways. It had a better sense of live presence of sound in the room than when the drivers are all more closely arranged as a point source. I
An arrangement I’ve been playing with lately involves pointing the stereo speakers away from you at a window, large screen TV, or large bare wall and listening to the stereo image reflected back at you. Absorption between the listener and the speaker to minimize bleed, although I’ve found this isn’t necessary for the image to move forward away from the speakers. It can help with the tonality. This set up can be surprisingly good sounding in some situations. The speaker’s virtual position is now behind the wall from an imaging perspective, so the sweet spot widens and the soundstage is big and spacious. The sound can become overly "wet" and revealing of the room’s colorations as you are virtually further away from the speakers so the room sound dominates. But after listening to this arrangement for a while, going back to the standard setup sounded too dry and rather small. I’m thinking a dipole speaker like Magnepans could be a good candidate for this setup. The listener could be positioned off to the sides of the speakers in the cancellation zone, so the bass wouldn’t tend to reach their ears too soon. That’s the problem with this setup and conventional speakers - the bass gets to you early compared to the reflected highs.