Okay let us try this again.

Real event that happened. Picked up an old Fisher integrated amp.
Tubes all light up. Hooked up to some small speakers, it sounds
soft, but pretty good. Hooked up to larger speakers it still sounds
pretty good, but weak. Checking with an O-scope, becomes
obvious one tube in the output pair is doing next to nothing. And
that anything over about 3 watts is very distorted. However this
was supposed to be an 18 wpc amp.

Do I assume marketing hubris, and say it sounds awfully good
for such a thing? Or do I consider it broken and fix it? I mean
it worked, does that mean it wasn't broken? Of course not,
it was broken and once fixed put out something near its rated
power.

If a tremendously expensive amp of huge mass hogs up a good deal
of power, claims to be 150 wpc and then tests more like 2 wpc,
do I say hey it works or not? Me, no I say broken as designed.

Have I heard the Wavac? No. Do I know what it sounds like
without listening to it? No. Have I heard other weak amps clipping?
Yes. Do they sound different from each other or the same? Usually
different. Do I benefit from listening to an amp that acts like an
amp grossly overdriven past 2 watts? No, I do not. Much better
to simply get an amp that doesn't need over-driving to use.

If it somehow sounded 'good' this way what would I do if a reviewer.
I would explain that it must be due to the output behaviour, and suggest
a similary distorting pre-amp, connected to a low distortion truly
150 wpc amp would get you the same effect for far less money with
lots more power.

Anybody caring to try this approach, I have a suggestion. The
Antique Sound Labs MG-DT Head headphone amp. One half of a
12AX7 per channel, one 6BQ5 per channel in SET connection.
Option of transformer coupling or OTL. Volume control
right up front. This decent little unit puts out something
like 1 or 2 watts itself. Plug in a source, get some Radio Shack
adaptors to connect RCA's to the headphone outupt jack. Feed
your amp. Voila', you have smooth, warm, fairly seductive
SET sound from whatever SS amp you are using. All for far
less than $500 even if you get some NOS tubes to replace the
stock tubes. Pretty nice headphone amp too.

Dennis