I've played nearly 1,400 different titles. Premium status is just a revenue share arrangement for a title. It is not an indicator of quality. It might be biased toward popular games however. Still, there are games I feel were designed well, and games I feel weren't, both in premium and in non-premium.
I see you are also from the US. I don't know your situation, but unless you are still a kid with little to no income yet, paying 3.5 USD to 5 USD a month seems affordable for most anyone in the US. Plus as someone noted, there are several ways to obtain free months of premium if you cannot. Or you can just join a premium player's table waiting for players, or discover the 1,000 non-premium titles.
And yeah, the feature to play from the same location, you have to pay (or earn free months of premium). But perhaps amongst the group you can round up a few bucks...