Is 1500 rapid good enough to study the Catalan (or English) opening?

@Kyrollous

You are welcome.

The lines provided are as short as possible.
We are not trying to prove an advantage or to create positions that are difficult to play for Black.

The basic idea is to dodge everything practically good Black has.

With Vienna Gambit we are dodging Petroff, Italian and Ruy Lopez - where Black e5 players spend most of their time.
Gothamchess could be useful here.
example game:

Alapin aims to dodge Open Sicilian and any interesting attempts Black may have.
We play c3, d4, develop g1 Knight, develop f1 Bishop, castle.
If Black takes on d4, we take with the c3 pawn getting the center.
example game:

Exchange Caro is dodging the Caro-Kann mainlies while being objectively good.
example game:

Exchange French with c4 is dodging the Advance variation and the Winawer variations, the ones Black spends most of their preparation time.
example game:

Against Scandinavian, we postpone Nf3 and play a quick Bd2 - the simplest approach I could find.
example game:

The line against Pirc is basically an opening trap by FM Kamil Plichta plus a few transpositions to get there.
example game:

The Sämisch Attack is avoiding most of the Alekhine theory and it is quite easy to play.
example game:

"... I don't like Catalan type structures as laid out in Avrukh’s book until one is at the 2200+ level. The positions are too subtle, require too much memorization in some variations to hope for any advantage against a prepared opponent, and I believe players should be learning more classical chess until they are higher rated. I have similar feelings about the English opening. Save these hypermodern approaches for later in your career and don’t start out with them unless your ambitions are modest. ..." - IM Greg Shahade (2012)
http://www.uschess.org/index.php/February-/Greg-on-Building-an-Opening-Repertoire.html

It's time wasting. Opening theory cost a lot of time but gives you just a maybe +0.3 advantage. This is important for strong players but not for guys like us who don't see a lot of middlegame tactics and don't play good endgames. So tactic and endgame training is much more important.

"Is 1500 rapid good enough to study the Catalan (or English) opening?"

No, no and again no!

@Meriten said in #15:

It's time wasting. Opening theory cost a lot of time but gives you just a maybe +0.3 advantage. This is important for strong players but not for guys like us who don't see a lot of middlegame tactics and don't play good endgames. So tactic and endgame training is much more important.

Endgame is not so important either below certain level. In my games endgames are so rare that I forgot maybe 80% of what I studied 2 years ago, and I'm talking only about simple endings. So I dare to claim that below 1500 rating only a few most elementary endings are useful to know, as most games are decided in the middle game.

@Kyrollous said in #13:

I have looked at the alapin as the anti- scilian weapon of choice.... But what of the grand Prix attack?

Both are good. I'd say the Grand Prix looks more scary for black as it's effective against the popular Hyperaccelerated Dragon, the Alapin looks more solid and more serious and if you add the Smith Morra to the equation the black side will definately have all the rights to feel intimidated.