There is no substitute for cubic inch or in this case surface area

I agree that a large enveloping sound and impact is abetted by physically large systems.  My own system has twin 12” woofers and a midrange horn thst is two feet wide by six inches tall.  My local dealer’s current custom builds often utilize twin 18” woofers and Much larger horns—up to 4.5 feet wide by 4 feet tall.  

What has dispersion have to do with sense of scale?  I like many small speakers, but they don’t do scale, sense of authority and impact of the big boys.

I prefer the sound of low excursion woofers--I like their ability to reproduce tonal nuances instead of just delivering deep, punchy bass; they sound more natural to me.  This does come at the cost of not being able to go very deep in frequency response.  This is admittedly a big price to pay but it is a personal preference.  Among the better modern woofers I've heard are custom woofers that are 18" in diameter and have pleated fabric surrounds that limit excursion and the thiele-small parameters require use of a very large enclosure.  A local builder who got a manufacturer to build drivers to his specifications uses twin 18" drivers in some of his bigger speaker and is proud that they go down to 35 hz.  I really don't miss the lower frequencies when I hear these systems.  Another modern driver supplier who sells 18" field coil woofers also makes them with low excursion and they are even more limited in deep bass response but sound very agile and clean; this builder uses these drivers too for customers looking for its signature, but, these drivers cost more than $20k per pair.

While this discussion has focused on woofers, the midrange driver(s) are key to the attributes we are discussing.  I particularly like compression drivers and horns, and I have found that the bigger the horn and the lower one can set the crossover point, the better the sound.  Truly large horns, with the right drivers deliver scale, impact, and authority at lower volume levels than any other kind of driver.