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I think this is another one of those areas where "it depends" on a lot of factors. Engine design, engine management system (e.g. how exactly it reacts to pinging), driving style (P&G puts my car into the regime where it may knock/ping depending on other conditions), ambient temps, and on and on and on.
One thing is for sure: Over the long term, pinging is very bad for your engine.
The best way to tell if premium fuel helps is to do an instrumented test. Or, rather, a whole lot of instrumented testing. If it does help, then you get to figure out if the MPG difference makes up for the $$ difference or not.
BTW, in my car it doesn't seem to make any difference for MPG. But it does keep the car from pinging in the "worst" of circumstances--where it will with regular-grade. (And the tendency to ping appears to vary from fill to fill as well, even when using the same grade of fuel from the same station.)
-soD
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