If the room begins to get large, say over 500 square feet, I would suggest 90dB or better. Maybe some of the problem with the US press is that they are struggling with US monitors. Nothing bad about the designers in the states, but they tend to fix problems instead of designing around them. European and Japanese designers search the world for great compatibility between drivers and then design simple cross overs to suite these. US designers tend to chose fad drivers and equalize the speakers for the best linear results.
Equalization tends to suck the power out of any system.
In searching for monitors that work well, look at the concepts of the designer as a mean to gauge the compatibility of the speakers. Another item is system impedance, look for systems with higher than 6 ohms as a minimum for best results. Since all sensitivities are usually exaggerated, stick with 8 ohm speakers. Setup, interconnect, speaker cable This is easy, most of the inputs should be 1M or less. The less interconnect you use between the source and the input to the Junior the less of a signature that cable will have an effect on.