Of course there has.
Interestingly though, it's only when you try to "defeat" that automated process that you start-into fatigue. Basically it takes a lot of concerted and developed effort to NOT "auto-negate" the effects of a small room with regard to reflected wavelengths.
Additionally as noted by Toole, it's more difficult to correct for non-uniform patterns.
Ex. 1
radial ("omni") pattern loudspeaker (like the MBL 101)
Ex. 2
Directional waveguide loudspeaker above 700 Hz, omni below that.
Both loudspeakers positioned equidistant from there near side walls at 3 feet, and another 3 feet from the wall behind them.
Ex. 1 has an almost uniform reflective pattern and is easier to process.
Ex. 2. has a non-uniform reflective pattern (with little reflections to the near side wall at 90 degrees assuming it is "firing forward" and almost nothing from the wall behind the loudspeaker, but the side-wall at perhaps 40 degrees has a lot more pressure from reflections - and of course this all differs drastically from it's "omni" behavior lower in frequency) and is more difficult to process.
However that result can differ IF you place Ex. 1 within about a foot and a half from the walls or closer at which point you start into a distance that becomes "bounded" at freq.s closer to 700 Hz (which goes higher in freq. the closer you get to any given wall). It's at this point that those freq.s are not reflected wavelengths, though they are reflections. Reducing the reward spl provides most people with an easier time of listening under these circumstances though for the most part the greatest trouble occurs higher in freq.: above 1 kHz because of the way you hear with regard to intensity at higher freq.s.
The LXmini is rather like ex. 2 because of the pressure loss at freq.s above 700 Hz as you move beyond a +/- 45 degrees (..though it does have quite a lot of pressure near 180 degrees or centered directly behind the loudspeaker). In fact, a good waveguide system is actually superior in this context, though of course there are many other considerations to a preferred listening result than just the interaction with the room (several of which I commented on already).
Worse still are conditions where side-walls are near, but NOT equidistant (where the loudspeaker on one side is closer to its near-wall than the loudspeaker on the other side). The same is also true if one speaker is closer to the wall behind it than the other.
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This post by Earl Geddes might help answer your question. If I understood the debate you two were having correctly.