This very resistance prevents the damping from being as effective as it could be otherwise. As long as the engineers dish out the specs, the salesmen will quote them and the audiophiles will converse about them. It has always been this way and it is not likely to change - after all, that's half the fun of audio. If we couldn't talk about our systems, we would have no other choice but to spend our time listening to them. If we want to make use of the specs, then we should take the time to understand their importance and real world value.
Many specs are very important and others are certainly of less importance.
It seems that understanding the spec is only part of the battle. Understanding its real value seems to be the difficult part. Really being able to place a value on the specs enables us to make better choices when it comes time to purchase or upgrade our systems. Spending a lot of money on something we cannot hear is not usually very wise. Poor choices can lead to disappointment and frustration with our investment and less enjoyment of the music, which is, after all, why we build systems in the first place.