Tough call Arkyt
In the past paid inclusion DID produce good traffic and was worth the investment. I have found the actual traffic numbers now are so small with some of the engines that its tough to justify. IE you pay only $25 -$40 dollars a year but you only get 40 or 50 hits. Is it worth it? Hard to tell. If you get a player, yes if you don’t then no its not.
Bottom line is the costs are so low I just go ahead and do it, but if I were on a strict budget I would not consider this a mandatory thing to do.