In that picture I can better admire the craftmenship of the speaker but I guess it doesn't fit my "ideal" of what a speaker should look like. I think I have a psychological bias that says any company who tries that hard to make a speaker draw that much attention to itself couldn't sound to great. I'm not quite sure if that reasoning makes sense or not, but I still don't care for the look (despite admiring the quality of the finish).

And yes the quality of the pic does make a difference on interpretation.