Do you really need premium gasoline?

"Save the money for preventative maintenance" is what this article is talking about: http://www.epinions.com/content_1825742980

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For the same reasons, in Europe and Asia gasoline will have higher octane ratings - since cars in these areas must have smaller engines for fuel economy and tax purposes, they must run at a higher compression level to produce adequate power, and hence will need higher-octane gasoline than American cars do. >>

Ok. I'll be sticking with unleaded gasoline. It is marked as 93 octane rating here in our place.

How about motorcycle engines? You will notice that a lot of motorcycles/trycycles are loading Regular gasoline. From the statement above, the smaller engines run at higher compression level to blah. blah.. The regular gasoline octane rating here is 81 which has a huge gap over 93 - 95 (unleaded, premium). Any good hearted mechanic out there that would gladly explain to us about this things? Our engines will be glad if they are being feed with the right food. Not the cheap nor expensive one.