Why aren't component active XOs more popular?

Thinkat and Serus summed it up. It is both more difficult and more rewarding if one puts forth the effort required.

As far as the "purists" go, i don't know of anyone that has heard a well designed actively crossed system that would choose a passively crossed system as being sonically superior. My brother was running custom built speakers with very simple crossovers using high grade parts and passively multi-amping. After i kept badgering him to try actively crossing them, he could not believe the difference.

Bare in mind that the huge increase in sonic performance that he noticed was achieved via an antique "pro sound" crossover that i had purchased years ago for less than $50 shipped. If one were to use a more advanced and better sounding crossover that allowed both time constants and contouring to be included in the processing, the benefits would be even greater.

As mentioned above though, the time and effort involved is a LOT more than what most audiophiles want to do. This approach is best suited for those that want to get their hands dirty and learn i.e. DIY rather than keep buying the flavour of the month and never understanding why things don't work like they should. Quite honestly, i've never seen a commercially designed product that wasn't built to a price point, regardless of the retail price. Sean
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When done write active XO is fantastic. I use it my reference system and I think we will find more companies in the very high end moving in this direction. However, once you do active XO and get it right, you are not likely to to sell your active XO--such is the case with me. That's probably why very few used ones show up here.

I have got no idea why they are not more popular
since they are superior in EVERY way.
Most of all they allow you to remove
inductors from the signal path; I'd rather have dozens of other
components then one inductor! They ruin everything:
they blur transients, shift phase and eat at least 50% of your
amplifier power as their minimum insertion loss is 3dB!

I could very well be wrong here, but, it is my understanding that untill digital crossovers arrived one could not get active crossovers to behave like 1st order passive crossovers. One may argue that having the large driver overlap of 1st order crossoves in large measure negates the point of active crossovers. Unfortunately one would then sacrafice the potential for time and phase continuity. I am hoping that the new generation of digital crossovers wil enable us to easily accomplish all the benefits with out (much?) compromise.

Errr...with a propper electronic crossover phasing doesn't get messed up in the first place so that is not really an issue! Remember it is the passive components of standard xovers that do all the messing up, remove them
and the problems disappear.
Electronic xovers are available with any slope you like if you really must have
a first order one or your driver demand, Bryston and LCAudio come to mind.
Many already contain delay to adjust timing differences between drivers.
Phasing can also be made continously variable if you want.
This is all possible in the analog domain so no need for convertors
and all the horrors they can produce.
Even other than the standard slopes should be possible.