Couldn't agree more with you! 192kHz is overkill as a "final" format.
16 bits is very limiting for music with lots of dynamics (ie: classical). Very quiet sounds sound quite bad at 16 bits, but since most pop music has about 6-12db of dynamic range, it doesn't make much of a difference.
I always thought the sweet spot would be 96-24. But the truth is, the market wants smaller and portable digital files, not higher quality music. Anything MP3 encoded will sound significantly worse than a CD anyways.
16 bits is not "very limiting" for anything, unless you think your ears themselves are very limiting.
Many things are mastered poorly— recording engineers crushing the dynamics in order to get the loudest possible signals— mostly a problem for pop music, but nothing is immune.
It's been observed that the various 'higher-definition' recordings have less brutal mastering— no doubt owing to the different audience they are marketed to. But this isn't a property of 24-bit vs 16-bit distribution.
16 bits is very limiting for music with lots of dynamics (ie: classical). Very quiet sounds sound quite bad at 16 bits, but since most pop music has about 6-12db of dynamic range, it doesn't make much of a difference.
I always thought the sweet spot would be 96-24. But the truth is, the market wants smaller and portable digital files, not higher quality music. Anything MP3 encoded will sound significantly worse than a CD anyways.