The critical distance for most rooms is much closer than people generally think. Unless setup on stage, pretty much any recording position from out in the audience is going to be further than the critical distance. That's certainly true at for unamplified music, a PA will have a somewhat different critical distance due to it controlled directionality, which extends the critical distance further into the room. This improved PAS technique helps makes the best of normal taping positions which are pretty much always farther away than the critical distance.
The common problem with most PAS setups is not enough spacing between microphones, not too much. That's due primarily to the limited size of commonly available mounting bars and the practical difficulties of spacing the microphones farther apart when doing so is appropriate, which is most of the time when recording from out in the audience due to the microphone PAS angles involved. It's easy and common to use a standard narrow bar regardless of microphone angle. Although it may also be less than ideal to use a wide bar with wide microphone angles, that error simply isn't very common or as much of a problem, certainly not in practical terms.
Some sound preferences are generally objective and agreed upon for most listeners, others will always be more personally subjective. Much of the driving force behind this PAS stuff is objective as determined by listener testing (the Williams curves and those of other researchers), although within that personal subjective preferences appear in subtleties of degree at the margins. On a personal level, I really dislike imaging which may be sharp if I hold my head perfectly still but is unstable and moves between the speakers when shift around on playback. I find that trait more common with coincident setups, those that don't use sufficient spacing, and those which are overly monophonic. That aspect doesn't bother some listeners as long as the imaging is sufficiently sharp. It ruins the illusion for me. I prefer a good balance of imaging, spaciousness, envelopment and ambience, with a stable soundstage. I really like a good spaced omni recording or Decca tree (three omni) recording in a good room. Personally I find the faults of wide, stable and immersive but fuzzy far less objectionable than flat, unstable, and overly dry, with pin-point sharp imaging. It's much closer to what I hear and enjoy at a live performance and is more musically satisfying to me. It’s the far less egregious error to my ear.
Stereo is all an illusion. There are always faults, but with the right knowledge at least the recordist can choose their own lesser poison. These are just tools to help achieve the desired result, rather than a rules dictating what the results should be.
