I figured we'd both see it in a similar light, Sdz...
As you say, you know what you can tolerate due to comfort.. found a working solution (on a quality basis by your own needs) and when with that route.
God knows, if spent as much time doing that obssesive ABXing that the contributers and organisers of those tests seem to do, i'd have no life outside it...
Maybe they don't have lives beyond their listening..?? :P
It's not beyond probability that a 128K encoding that's acceptable to most for most mainstream content will emerge in time - but if it does happen, it'll be dead from the beginning due to the daily-reinforced 'one 128k encoding is crap therefor all 128k is crap' mentaility. But even if it does happen, if the results dont suit personal needs... it's redundant.