We'd had this chat before, both Ryan and myself have spaths. Spaths were the actual first acros I got, still have them. I got them 3 months into the hobby and had them for over two years. They are easier than people think.
I think they are just uncommon and maybe since they are uncommon they don't get correctly labeled. I have a feeling acros that don't have the right tagging when collected can get a bad name as "hard to keep" because of varying experiences with them due to incorrect taxonomy. For example, if I collect something and say it is a milli, but it is in fact a deswaldi (look similar), par would greatly vary for it. People buying all these things they think are milli's and frying them would say milli are hard.