I'll just talk from my own experience, although that's rather based on general relationships than d/s ones, but I think that there's more in common than most strictly vanilla people think.

first off, it really depends on each person and how their self-esteem got so low. my lows are mostly based on my outside appearence and the incoherent way I sometimes talk - I just feel inferior when I have a bda day and can't get one sentence fully out without skidding over the words. if then someone looks at me a bit queer I'm ready to crawl into hiding and not get out for some time. I don't have any thraumatic bachground or something, so I consider myself a psychotic but rather normal weirdo
as I just stated in another thread there's one thing to crack me, that's ignoring me. that's the one effective way to blow down all my defences and make me cringe in hours, because I begin to imagine a multitude of stupid reasons for being ignored, and I'm really good at pushing myself down very fast. so that's something a dominant would have to take into consideration when dealing with me - a simple explanation of possible time problems is all there is to be needed to not trigger that accidently.
so if I ever happen to find myself at the "mercy" of someone who doesn't mind myself going inside because of feeling ignored, who doesn't even try to assure me that I don't look like a monster and who doesn't care to reassure me on my other qualities there's only one thing left to do - quit. but someone who does something like that on perpose is a jerk and has no rigt to consider him/herself a dominant in my eyes.

Submission is not en excuse for low self esteem and low self esteem is not an excuse for submission or abuse. A hard choice for all concerned
I can only agree with that. these two tings might show up together, but they are neither based on the same thing nor have to go hand in hand. I know some people who have equally low self-esteem as me and whom I wouldn't consider submissive (although they might now consider me so, either), and I know from myself that I still feel more comfortable with the role of a sub when I'm in a psychical high with everything around me going well and without issues.

but I discovered that being dominated might even have a positive effect on my self-esteem as it's a sign of being acknowledged, of being cared about, so it really just depends on the people, not on the value of their respective self-esteems how or if something might work out.