What JJ and I are talking about is ABX as a development tool. What developer uses to debug code with. Obviously, unless you are writing paper or course about detailed encoder development, you don't publish much about this. About as high as I've ever seen this sort of thing percolate is the paper from Apple a few years back about processing files for download on their music site.
You have no experience with how codecs are developed Arny. Only JJ and I do. JJ said he used ABX at AT&T together with other tools such as ABC/HR. I said that we never did including the time that JJ joined my team.
I also participated in a number of shoot outs conducted by others of lossy codecs and none used ABX. I also quoted a number of papers from AES, none of which showed ABX usage in that regard.
You are also wrong about lack of publishing. People doing signal processing work are the most anxious to write papers on just about everything they do. Certainly this is true of standardized codecs like MP3, AAC, AAC, Dolby AC-3, etc. Speaking of AC-3, here is another graph I have saved up in my library from an AES paper for another use:
We see again MOS style scoring of preference (from 0 to -4). No ABX, forced binary choice here.
The reason ABX is not used is because impairments are always audible enough to not worry about whether they exist at all for which ABX is used.
So please don't step outside of your expertise. When I comment on something i did professionally for a decade, it is not some random forum chatter to argue with using stuff you may have heard or assumed.
This is a science forum and you should expect higher level of knowledge here than you are assuming.