For many many years I avoided using a center channel in my system, mostly because I had no good place to put it. The phantom center seemed just fine. Then I did a little 5.1 setup in my bedroom and was amazed at how good it sounded on everything. So, when I replaced the speakers in my main system, I FOUND a place for a center channel.

It took a few weeks to get used to the localized sound over the more expansive (but hollow) sounding "phantom", and now I love it. Also much better for off-center viewers.