Hello Ryung,
Interesting question. There is not going to be an absolute answer as to how big an RSE has to be to considered too big, But it will be interesting to see if those working in government agencies have some practice that they consistently use. Also, it depends on the context. When working on a topic where results are scarce or when anything new is exciting, even a "lousy" RSE may be worth tolerating if the point estimate is excitingly new.
However, it sounds like you may be dealing with a case where lots of results will be published for lots of small areas. If you were presenting things to a statistically savvy audience, you could show everything (all point estimates) with perhaps a cautionary note for some. But in order to protect non-statisticians from themselves (and protect those they communicate to) a rule seems good.
So, I chewed on it a bit, but I did not answer your question. Can those working in this type of context add something?
Best wishes,
Nayak
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Nayak Polissar
Principal Statistician
The Mountain-Whisper-Light Statistics
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