DukeOfAnandtech clearly demonstrates his ignorance on this subject and it's sad that so many people think this way nowadays. That is why you see people buying crap stereo "systems" at department stores thinking that they are buying good stuff. When buying a "system" as most would call it, they should first consider the room size and acoustics and then buy accordingly.
People are also obsessed with the power of a system. Who cares whether you have a powerful system or not. The point is you are not going to listen to music with the full 1000W RMS or how many thousand PMPO constantly. For most rooms, 100-150W RMS would serve its purpose very nicely. If you have a huge room, then you would need more power. Also, when an amplifier is playing at PMPO, it would mostly generate noise because it is running at its limit.
However, in defense of having more power, most audio enthusiasts would agree that one thing good about having a high RMS power is the ease of driving the speakers. It is best to match speakers to what their power rating is. But, if you do not have matching speaker and amplifier power, it is better to drive low powered speakers with higher powered amps than driving high powered speakers with low powered amps.