Fan-made anime abridged series are really popular. Works like LittleKuribou's Yu-gi-oh and Team Four Star's Dragon Ball Z abridged are pleasure to watch. Even with the long wait (months) between episodes I'm still excited each time a new SAO Abridged episode comes out.
The Abridgers most of time make jokes that shows a thorough understanding of the original. These series are better watched after finishing the source material.
Recently I watched Fate/Stay Night: Unlimited Blade Works Abridged by Project Mouthwash and it became my new favorite.
I liked their interpretations of Emiya Shiro and Archer. The relationship between the latter and Tohsaka Rin is very funny. With her thinking she summoned actual Satan and Archer not being able to correct her. I Also loved how Rin refer to the holy grail as a 'Cup.'
There's also many throwbacks to Fate/Zero, even more than the original.
This abridged voice actor for Shiro is the same as Kirito from SAO Abridged, which is awesome. Though I took some time to get used to Kirito's voice used by another character. Now I love it!
There are 5 episodes released by now.
You can watch them in this Youtube playlist.
The team behind it also made Digimon Abridged and Bleach Abridged so I wanna see them if I had time.