Disagree partly ... superconductivity, diamond and carbon devices, more powerful magnets ... these definitely have a LONG way to evolve. AFA "motivation" (or lack of) ... well, part of that comes from company culture and part comes from profit/greed. And I don't think headphone companies are particularly lacking ... just count the EXPONENTIALLY GROWING # of can models, can BRANDS, can sites/blogs/forums. Motivation in spades, IMO 
BTW, I'm new to Changstar but not-head-fi. Just noticed your ban over there. How did you piss Jude off, dude? I LOVE GOSSIP
You are talking about motivation to make money. I'm talking about motivation to actually make a better headphone. Not just make something good enough to combine with marketing and a bunch of model number schemes to sell to the brainwashed masses.
I'm talking about the limiting factor. Yes, materials and understanding have improved, that's my point. What I'm saying is that headphones have not improved proportionally (if at all) to the improvements in materials and understanding. And that gap is because they aren't trying hard enough. If Joe Grado could make a headphone as neutral and clean as the HP1000 in his garage, Beyer, Sennheiser, AKG, ATH, etc should be able to as well 20 years later.
As for being banned, just read the K550 thread, although Currawong deleted a bunch not sure how much.
