It's not just the bitrate that you rip at that is important with regards to quality.
The type of encoder you use will make a hell of a difference when ripping.
As much as possible go for the Faunhoffer before Lame.
Also a lot of people are concerned with saving space, so they normally go for VBR (variable bitrate), but for me the space saved is negligible where the drop in sound quality is definitely noticeable.
Personally i always choose CBR (Constant bitrate), no loss of quality.
Also, if you have a file at a lesser bitrate, upping it to a higher one will make no difference at all to the quality, the size of the file will just be bigger.
You can't put back what isn't there.
Also, about the wave debate. Wave is quickly being replaced with .ape and flac which are both lossless compression, so you still save space, but not at the expense of sound quality.
Also, if you do have a hissy / scratchy recording, then the best plugins around to repair this are by Waves. I have been ripping my oldskool vinyl for ages now. some of it is in a pretty bad state, but then it did get battered back in the days.
It still amazes me at how good a job the Waves vinyl restoration plugins do.
I have built a multi plugin in soundforge's chainer.
The chain is
De-crackle - De-hiss - De-click - De-hum and then a normalizer and a maximiser.
The job it does on vinyl that would normally be relegated to the bin has to be heard to be believed.