Marty,
I consider the F. Toole book an excellent reference text in sound reproduction, particularly Part One - Understanding the Principles, have read it carefully, some parts more than once, and learned a lot from it. However I (and many others) disagree with the limited view of stereo capabilities endorsed by F. Toole, and specially the self-justifying sentence " it really is all about the music" or the use the degradation of our hearing to excuse system compromises. For example, as you know, David Wilson has told how we compensate for this loss in frequency response from timing, and unless we are strongly affected by hearing losses, sometimes older people are critical listeners and enjoy better high quality reproduction.
Although this hobby (being an audiophile) is about the music, IMHO it is not exclusively all about the music, and here most audiophiles and audio designers part with F. Toole. We must see that his stereo approach is different from ours - what he considers non relevant is the essence of our fun : the ultimate capabilities of stereo reproduction.
F. Toole has always openly exposed his very negative opinions about the high-end and our preferences, even about particular subjects such as expensive electronics, cables and tweaks. He is surely a great scientist, respected by the audio community. I respect people who follow his advice and views. But we must always remember that our (most WBF audiophiles) fun is fundamentally different from his fun.