The differences are listed below which seem to be nearly correct, there can be +-1-2 out of 100.
The buyer which has less money goes to buy $5 press release. So does he rank ? It depends on the believe he has on his seo and not the hope on the number and quality of the backlinks.
The buyer which has more money buys $200 press release. Does he rank? Pretty much yes with the low to medium competition keyword on page 1-3. This is because this buyer has the trust that spending more money would rank his website and he does not have any idea what is SEO. If he had the idea how to rank websites then he must be heading towards the cheaper source and he knows that links are links whether you buy from a $5 seller or a $200 seller. There is a saying in URDU which pretty much translates to this : Bigger the shop > higher the prices and quality is ok without any flaws.
Advice to the link buyers : Just learn seo and buy cheap links and better spend part of the earnings on donations as well. Putting all the belief on money ain't correct. Ask the one who lost the money and came to the footpath. (Just a warning to avoid bad days).
Wow! As long as people believe and spread this misinformation then it should be easier for the rest of us that know quality beats quantity.