Lee, although your post was fairly lengthy, you didn't really ever describe what "adjustments"(crossover?, level?)you made in response to what problem. I also listen to classical CDs recorded from about 1930 to date, but never need to make an adjustment directly to my EP500. If it's a question of some older recordings being bass-shy, this can be helped to a limited extent by applying a little bass boost with the tone controls.
As to speaker wiring, "really good quality" shouldn't be a factor, since all commercially available copper wire is of sufficient quality to do the rather simple job of supplying a low resistance metal path for the power wave traveling down its outside.
When you get your M60s and the 2309/889 you should definitely set up surround speakers so that you can extract the ambience(using DPLII, etc.)coming from directions other than the front which is contained in your CDs and LPs and send it to the surrounds where it belongs.
