I haven't seen many Wharfedale speakers on ubid in quite a while. I have been very pleased with what I have heard from Wharfedale considering the low prices, though the list prices are pretty optimistic. The only ones I really didn't like were the Valdus series speakers. The Emeralds were very good considering the price. I bought a pair of Emerald 97s for about $300 and lived happily with them for about a year and then sold them on eBay for $12 more than I paid for them. The MFM 5s sounded just as good but they didn't have the nice wood cabinets that the Emeralds had. The Diamond Anniversary bookshelf speakers were also a great deal at less than $100 a pair shipped. I ended up buying about 5 pairs for friends and an office system. The new EVO speakers seem to be a step above all of the other recent offerings and the retail prices are more in line with the performance.
I am not sure why Wharfedale re-entered the US market in the way they did, but the inexpensive models can be a pretty good deal if you don't pay attention to the inflated retail prices and just look at them as an inexpensive pair of speakers with some decent parts (tweeters and crossovers, namely) in a standard black box cabinet.