Without "the" - XX,XXX
With "the" - Hard to sell
Just because "the absolute best" got what it did, I really don't think that should be a consideration. For a start, this term is fairly known, than saying "super". A doctor that didn't save someone from cancer, he may say "I'm sorry, we did our absolute best" or "we're going to do the absolute best we can"...never "super", even in other typical scenarios that I can think of. I think you're just thinking "well this got that so come on, I should get at least X"...it just doesn't work that way. Without "the" would be the only exception here, IMO