Couldn't we just "reverse engineer" the thing, and rebuild a design "from scratch"? I mean, his work should allow us to go back to first principles, from which we can rebuild a new design.
That's always a possibility, but I think most people who build his designs don't know how they work. High-quality audio reproduction isn't mysterious, but it's not trivial either. One must have a good sense of how and why amplifiers distort signals. That limits the possible candidates for a new design and assures that many will simply build a proven design they don't understand.
Couldn't we just "reverse engineer" the thing, and rebuild a design "from scratch"? I mean, his work should allow us to go back to first principles, from which we can rebuild a new design.