[Sean Jahnig] “If i render the exact same project to MP4 in 1280×720 with the same target/maximum bitrate then why isn’t the file size smaller?”
Because the bitrate is the same. You could export a 4K sequence with the same settings and the size will be the same. In compressed formats you should give larger resolutions more bitrate so they’ll look better but resolution itself will not matter in the size. If you use uncompressed formats then resolution would change the final size because every pixel at every frame would be drawn at the selected bit depth.