I have sowed Echinacea purpurea and cultivars at normal room temperature in spring several times and had good germination. I haven't done this to be experimental, but rather because that has always been one of the recommended methods from the places where I purchased them. I seen this recommendation many places, including gardening forums in Sweden. True I have managed to have 100% loss of the young seedlings to damping off, but they have definitely germinated this way .
I've read that sometimes certain traits (such as quick germination) which are desirable in cultivation are present to a larger degree in cultivated seeds as the gardener tends to select these seedlings first, but in nature such seeds could be killed by winter. Not sure if this would account for differences here as any seeds found in Europe, for sure would be from cultivated stock, but that would perhaps not always be true in the USA.
If the seeds refuses to germinate at warm temperature, they can always be chilled afterwards (but don't let them freeze) as long as they haven't rotted from too wet soil. In fact it's often helpful to let seeds swell a bit before cold treatment as this mimics nature, but of course this can depend on the species as well.
