My story is basically the same (except iTunes was mpd in my case) but I'm seriously considering moving back because of the music quality. I don't consider myself anything close to "audiophile" but the dynamic range of streamed music (at least for spotify) makes for a terrible experience when played at rather high volume over speakers. The difference to CD-ripped mp3 is immense.

Messing with the few options offered by the spotify client didn't help either. I'm mostly looking for a solution to use my music libary with a streaming service as drop-in for missing tracks.