I've never thought to try it again.
The same benefits and risks would still apply. CBR is INCREDIBLY wasteful for podcasts, but I bet lots of platforms still don't seek properly in long VBR MP3s.
One solution could be adding multi-enclosure-format support to the podcast ecosystem, where we offer modern clients a list of formats and let them pick more advanced ones if they support them.
But I bet ZERO big DAI platforms, and therefore zero popular podcasts, would support it.