Of course there's a relationship between abr and quality. But that's not what ddogg meant (at least that's what I think
). I think what he means is that you cannot say that a certain abr will result in a certain quality.
You cannot say this bitrate will always result in that quality. Just like your statement that some svcd look bad at a BR of 2200. Some others will look excellent at that bitrate.
The question asked here is quite irrelevant though. What is the lowest bitrate acceptable to you is of course very subjective
.