I'd suggest a little more optimism. Technics was, and is, a large and very capable company, and I've encountered rack system speakers that were surprisingly convincing (and plenty that were lousy). So listening is the only way to know, especially since tastes differ. I will say that I heard a small eight inch two way Technics that looked similar and impressed me mightily. When I finally found a pair at a tag sale and took them apart to look, I was surprised to fine that they had two spiders - one in the normal location, and one somewhat up the cone. What this did, I'm not sure, but it certainly wasn't the sort of thing you would expect on a speaker designed only by bean counters.
I've gone on in other posts about the merits of a large multi driver pair of Kenwoods I refoamed out of curiousity, and I think you should listen to these with an open mind - driver specs only tell a portion of the story. Nothing replaces actual listening.
I'm unclear what you mean by hard to tune - start with all tone controls flat and see if the frequency response is relatively even and smooth. If the high end is lacking or hard, try recapping - often the electrolytics are out of spec. There are close to an infinite number of threads on recapping and what caps to use, but new electrolytics are cheapest, and will enable you to hear what the designers thought they were achieving. You can always upgrade to film caps later, if you want.
