I've stayed at all values (except AoA) and the only one where I feel that preferred is important is at Music. It's layout is a little different and there are buildings further away from the main building than the others. I have stayed standard there (before there were categories) in the Rock Inn when I was a young 20 something with no kids and that was fine. But, with a family I think I'd pay for preferred now.
At Sports, we prefer standard and request Home Run Hotel (Baseball).
At Movies we book based on the theme we are interested in - we've stayed Toy Story (pre-categories) and Fantasia. When we were in Fantasia we could have thrown a rock and hit Love Bug which is non-standard.
At Pop, we are fine anywhere. The only thing I would avoid is preferred pool view as I wouldn't want all the noise from the main pool.