Back to the OP...I think that there's a couple of ways to look at this.

If you are in nullsec and you aren't RR fit, you basically need to toe the line with the kiting MWD stuff in gangs. This may see you get vaped every now and then by alpha shots, but you are more likely to have to suck up ceptors, and GTFO Sabres. The number of people with decent rail and arty fit ships that can gank you before you GTFO is actually usually pretty small. I mean, yes, you might be unlucky to land a AHAC sniper zealot blob but AB won't save you anyway.

If you are fitting for the RR AF doctrine, then you need AB for the sig tanking. No way out of it. You just have to get a good warpin on BC's or similar and its all gravy. You'll struggle with ceptors and so on, but you can tank them till they get bored.

In lowsec for solo work it will depend on your strategy how you fit it - and on how good an AF pilot you are. You won't be doing much fighting on gates unless its to bait aggro, and in this case you'll want an AB so that they won't lock you up before you are back within jump range...and if they do, you'll survive the DPS that actually lands on you. Its not likely a thrasher will be trying to insta you under gate guns (unless he's suicidal).

Hisec, you probably want a MWD or dual prop just because you'll either be trying to munch mission runners in their missions, or trying to escape some dude who has 65 guardians backing him up. If you are fighting on undock, you really don't need MWD, you need your head looked at.

For wormholes, AB fit, the whole way. You'll be either getting a warp at zero with sleepers on the field (often) and need the low sig to survive the latter and no need to motor 40km @ 1.5km/s to your victim, or you'll be within 5km of a wormhole.

So, TL;DR version: I DUNNO!!!