Well the problem with that analyses is that it doesn't take into account what it is about a higher framerate that makes it look better. It's like comparing paintings by counting the number of brushstrokes, or comparing software by counting the lines of code written.
It's what you express with each of those details that makes them important. It's the final result, what's communicated to the viewer that matters. And in that respect, the amount of brushstrokes you need, or the amount of frames in moving from one pose to the next is exactly whatever number you need to communicate the thing you are trying to communicate. Any less would do the idea injustice, and any more would be an effort wasted (effort you could be using to utilize and express even grander ideas and concepts).
More frames means you have that much more opportunity to express and detail exactly how something moves with much more precision and fluidity, but it's just as easy to blithely put every extra frame in a "middle" spot and effectively waste effort as your "higher framerate" expresses nothing of value to the animation.
Working from your example, lets say we have two animations that are completely identical. We have a team of complete unknowns put in charge of putting an extra frame in-between every frame of the original (we can assume they can draw well enough for the in-between frames to match the original frames they are in-betweening, but nothing else). In that scenario, it is impossible to tell if the animation with a "doubled framerate" is going to be better or worse than the one with the lower framerate. It could look fluid and vivid, but it could just as easily look mushy and ambiguous. The fact that the extra frames are there isn't what makes the animation "better". Each extra frame that's put in there adds quality to the work based solely on the thought and quality put into the frame itself.
If anything, the framerate can only define the amount of potential an animation has to be better. An animation established with a higher framerate has that much more opportunity to be better, but there is no definite sign that it will be better. (in fact, there are some *rare* situations that actually look better with the framerate cut down. Richard Williams covers an example of this in The Animators Survival Kit, using an sequence from The Thief and the Cobbler no less.)
Really my beef is just with Dreamworks (and for design/taste/management reasons more than anything else), but the whole computer thing is offputting because it does so much of the work in those details while leaving the true artists with only a limited array of control over how the thing is actually made (In the end, it's churned out frame by frame from a giant array of processors in some soulless rendering farm). They've made everything become so big and detailed that instead of simplifying the animator's workload, you have to split it up between several departments just to get an image from it (which usually results in each artist working on his tiny specific element in a vaccum with no knowledge of how the thing will look when put into a complete image. I shouldn't lump Pixar in because they are much better about this than Dreamworks when you compare their designs and workflows).
Although I love the stuff as well because I'm persuing computer science, so I can put control in my own hands at whatever level I like as long as I'm willing to work for it. (although I find drawing images in sequence a much simpler task to that end) It's just that people are paying way too much money for way too many frames and way too much detail that isn't actually being utilized because it's so easy to make a computer do all the hard monotonous parts. You don't even need a reason to draw every single strand of hair or unsightly pore, you can "set it" and let the computer labor for hours on end for an animation that almost always isn't even worth the effort. (
case in point)
Is it stupid for me to pity machines? Because I do.
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good animations