And for the life of me I can't figure out why more people have not tried this setup
Just hazarding a guess:
You're trading size (smaller box) for noise (lower output sensitivity which requires more gain) and that makes some people squeamish? ("since you pay the price for caps, why not get the performance from it" line of thought)
Only other thought was that for a while, the chain was: cap > cmr box > amp which isn't nearly as attractive, and you've essentially chopped one link out of that chain. I know lutch had done that already (with the custom church pre), but I didn't follow the discussion anymore after the initial discussion.
That
is slick looking though.
On an unrelated note; you have the same carpet I had in my last apt. I recognize that stuff anywhere.