"The more I read and post in this thread, it seems to me that most of the
effort is trying to discredit a marketing department - and a few
reviewers.

What benefit would I, as a consumer, would get from this effort?
Especially
since it is designed not to help me find an amp that would match my
speaker"

You have got it. The test was designed to do exactly the above. It was
to show that one can save money and stress knowing that a 1 k amp will
sound no different then the 10 k amp found in the hi fi rags and floating
on a sea of review ink. Your concern that an amp has enough current not
to become unstable for a given spl is fine but not the reason for the
test. The condition in the test that says the amps under test don't
exceed stable limits is obvious, we don't want the 10 k amp wimping out on
us so it sounds different for it's overloaded artifacts and thus easily
identified. Your concern is a rather easy calculation done comparing
lowest speaker load and the current limits of the amp, it is a universe
away from and not relevent in the least to the reason for the test to
exist. Your purchase concern is only about numbers, findd any two amps
with similar numbers and you are home free and no difference in sound will
be found.