Bummer. As they say" "Hindsight is 20Hz-20kHz."
Just a couple of comments on the repair. Wood damage can be compression (wood smashed in from impact -- dent) or gouge (material missing) or combination of the 2 (or more?) factors. We had a vintage speaker presented for repair that had taken a tumble (off a speaker stand). I could see that the the speaker had impacted multiple hard surfaces on the way down.
I remembered an old trick from wood shop where "sweating" the wood was preferrable to sanding out, or filling, dents. Back then, we used old soldering guns placed on top of a moistened cloth to create steam and expand the material. Pretty effective, actually. I decided to try a modern method based on what I had on hand -- paper towels and a heat gun. My expectations were pretty low, but I was pretty sure I wasn’t going to make it worse. So, I moisteneduntil a paper towel and placed it on the damaged part of the speaker and blew heat on it. I kept after it, moving the heat gun randomly until he paper towel was dry. A few minutes later I would classify this as a borderline miracle in that the damage was unnoticeable in some areas and greatly improved in others.
This. may not work miracles in your case, but could reduce the severity of the repair from, say Tier 3, to Tier 2?
By the way, a few years back an owner’s cat decided to get "curious" about a Beryllium tweeter in a pair of Focal speakers, and "modified" it with a full length gash through the tweeter diaphragm. The "accommodation price" (our landed cost) of a new tweeter was around $1,000 if I recall correctly.
Good luck.