Tough call. I never had the cahnce to listen to the Axioms before I dropped a chunk down on my M60's, VP150. and QS8 setup. From my research (which I had to do a lot since I couldn't listen to Axioms and wanted to be confident about buying something I hadn't heard), you are right in thinking that the Axioms are a more accurate and better value than the Paradigms and Polks that you mention. A bunch of my Parasigm info comes from my brother-in-law who had me sold on Paradigms a couple of years ago, but even he, a die hard Paradigm fan, switched to Axiom. He had the Monitor 7's and went with the M60s and thought that they were considerably better. It is too bad that I have not been to his house (he lives way too far away) since he got the Axioms, but it sure helped getting his feedback.
As for the Polks, I listened to them at a local shop, and I was not overly impressed. They were a lot better than my last set of speakers, but then again, those were KLH's from 1992. Just about anything sounds better than they did. I just expected to be blown away by the Polk Monitor 70's, but I wasn't...
As for other competitors, good luck. I know that you can find better products out there, but not for the price.
