From what I understand, you only get the higher sound quality with Pandora on your computer. Mobile devices and CE devices are still at the lower bit rate, even with the paid account. This of course is very stupid and I hope someone can chime in and tell me this is wrong. That they have changed this or was simply incorrect info to begin with.

I have Spotify and pay for the premium service. Not everything is high quality on their service. Some songs are lower bit rate and they tell you this on their website (somewhere in the fine print). I have experienced this, where some songs were noticeably lower quality than others. It has not been a lot, just a few, but I have noticed it.
The other thing that pisses me off with Spotify is they don't allow UI integration like every other service. Launch Spotify on most CE devices and you have to use the Spotify connect app. The few devices that I can use a built-in interface (like Roku), the UI sucks so bad you'll want to use the separate Spotify connect app.