Doug, for the distances typically used in home audio it really doesn't matter whether short interconnects and long speaker wires or the converse are used. Long interconnects might be more susceptible to picking up interference, long speaker wires with higher resistance would have higher power loss and might show frequency variations with swings in speaker impedance. In practice, shielded interconnects rarely have an interference problem in home use and thicker speaker wire compensates adequately for a longer run. The longer speaker wires might be cheaper than the longer interconnects, especially if using very short speaker wires had the disadvantage of needing separate amplifiers. Overall, another thing not to worry about in the real world.
