That's the general consensus, yeah. AAA gets lots of press, but it is not a direct reflection of quality: as has been mentioned, the large budget also includes marketing $$$.
AAA also refers sometimes to overall production values, which tends to mean amount of features and coverage of areas of experience: story, cinematics, voiceover, variety, realism, etc. Without a AAA budget you can't afford all of that and must focus on doing one or two things right and ignore the rest. This plethora of features can sometimes be mistaken for 'quality'.
I think this makes my point in more/better detail than I managed to do. This is more or less what I mean by wishing gamers would get away from using AAA as some kind of symbol of quality.
AAA also refers sometimes to overall production values, which tends to mean amount of features and coverage of areas of experience: story, cinematics, voiceover, variety, realism, etc. Without a AAA budget you can't afford all of that and must focus on doing one or two things right and ignore the rest. This plethora of features can sometimes be mistaken for 'quality'.