You state the midrange doesn't dip below flat, as if that makes any difference in the full context. Whether the midrange drops below flat on the Harmon chart doesn't change the fact that other parts of the frequency (bass, upper mids and highs) are markedly bumped up and boosted in comparison to the mids, which would ultimately have the same audible or sonic result as mids being recessed. You could simply drop the entire line in the chart, so that the bass frequencies were the flat reference point, and sure enough in comparison, the mids would be recessed. It's the full context that matters above all.
Also, I'm not arguing that the Z1R is the flattest of all of the headphones, on the contrary, the whole point of my post was that it doesn't matter which is the flattest, because being the flattest in frequency terms has little to do with sounding ideal, balanced or closest to reference. Which is "flattest' is an arbitrary point that has no real relevance to deciding what or which headphones sound best, hence the reason I posted the Harmon targets, which are anything but flat.
Also, to your last point, of course I can logically argue what constitutes as my own idea of "neutral" or "balanced", and the degree to which I disagree or agree wth other users or journalists about this, because such a notion is, as mentioned, entirely subjective.
The example I gave is how Tyll and many others, originally described the HD800's as "extremely well balanced", some argued it was "neutral", "highly accurate" etc, but yet some of these same people then went out of their way to heavily mod, EQ tweak or adapt their HD800's, to the point where the entire sonic signature was markedly different, which to me highlights that the HD800's were never actually as accurate or well balanced as some originally made them out to be, and in fact many of the (mostly early) subjective opinions or impressions were, in my opinion, somewhat inaccurate.