Sorry if this has been asked/answered a million times over, but are there any situations where you would recommend using 192Kbps CBR over V2 with the LAME encoder?

Sometimes when you encode a file using V2, the average bitrate can be way under 192, so does that imply that the quality is worse than the same file at 192 CBR or is it just that a lower bit rate was sufficient for that particular song?

Thanks in advance!

The only time is if your player has problems with VBR.

No, it doesn't means it is worst quality. Only that the encoder decided that that part of the song needed less bits to be encoded.

Average bitrate doesn't tell about quality. A lower bitrate can be very adequate for tracks that are easy to encode.
But on the other hand VBR is a bit appreciated too much in the higher bitrate range, whereas with CBR it's the contrary. Many people think like 'CBR means constant audio data bitrate so this is stupid as compared to the intelligent adaption of audio data bitrate to the actual encoding complexity of the track'.
As for CBR this is definitely wrong. Even with CBR audio data bitrate varies though in a restricted sense. And the higher the bitrate the less is the variation restriction relevant. And the higher the bitrate VBR's advantages are getting less significant whereas the disadvantages are increasing. The problem is that the encoder has to decide on encoding complexity for chosing the bitrate, and it does happen (though it's rare) that it does a bad job on that.

IMO the crossover from where VBR is losing it's basic advantages is at 224 kbps. I definitely prefer CBR 256 over -V0. But the best of the two worlds at high bitrate is ABR IMO. Maybe I will see these things in a different light in the future: 3.98 alpha VBR behavior has improved a lot.

Wha? Do you mean 256kbps CBR or -V0 isn't transparent for you?

Usually transparency is reached at lower settings. But I do care about samples like herding_calls, trumpet and harp40_1. It's all natural music, and the originals don't give the appearance that they are hard to encode. But they provide problems to many encoders. herding_calls and trumpet are rather easily abxable at -V0 with the Lame 3.97 branch for instance.
If you're interested you can learn more about these samples in many threads here on HA.

In that case, IMHO I think it would be rash to say VBR loses its advantage at 224kbps when most files are still transparent for you.

I have trouble understanding the rest of your posts.