The inductors shown attached to the wooden (!) board are air-cored, so there is poor confinement of the magnetic flux around them, thus the need for an orthogonal disposition between the two.
The inductors of the B&W crossover use ferrite cores, so there is much tighter flux confinement. You could rearrange them to be mutually orthogonal to one another, but I doubt it would make much difference to the SQ.
I have a pair of the DM2a speakers as shown. No modifications have been made and they do not display the 'dark' 'cloudy' symptoms complained of.