Forum Moderators: open
a) what your reasons for submitting to a regional category are and
b) how valuable your time is
If you truly only serve a regional market, and you can't afford to wait the amount of time a free listing can take, than yes, you should pay.
If there is an appropriate global category then that is where you should submit. These categories are favored in search results and you can always suggest the regional listing as part of the submission.
Nube, I would only add that regional listings are very easy to get into with a quality site.
Looking at the referrals a few months on, most come from search.yahoo.com, and not from ppl clicking their way through the directory.
I think I wouldn't have paid extra for inclusion into regional categories.
Will they turn down a site that has applied for a local listing if it appears to them that it applies to a more global category? Or would refusal indicate that the site was just not of good enough quality, or didn't contain enough unique content? I'm asking this on the assumption that an editor actually does pay a visit.