From my personal experience, I've had deletions from my Collections. One was a Medical bill of $356 that was added and decreased my Fico by 18 points. I immediately called them and paid it. I asked for a Pay for Delete...they agreed and everything was in writing. After the deletion it went back up 18 points. I recently, had a $158 bill that was paid, but it wasn't deleted. I recently got that removed 2 weeks ago and my score jumped up 12 points. I don't know if points are based on the dollar amount has to how many points you will receive, but your points will go up once they are deleted, but I don't know by how much. Make sure everything is in writing. 
If you have the money to pay it off and if the Creditor can take it off and you have something in writing, IMHO - I think you should.
Good Luck.
@marty56 wrote:
If you got your credit report from MyFico, the score simulator will show you the effect of paying down the balances. I dont know about the collections or lates etc.I wich the simulator could show the effect of removing negaitive infomation from your account. If it is possible and or FICO would allow it.
There's actually a way that you can do that, although it's a pretty broad score range. It's the FICO Score Estimator (not simulator):
http://www.myfico.com/FICOCreditScoreEstimator/Estimator.aspx
When you go through and plug in your numbers, just use the info from one of your score reports. For instance, when it asks how many things you've app'd for, and you have 3 on EQ, 6 on EX and 4 on TU, don't enter 13 (3+6+4.) Just enter the numbers from one report.
If you want to see what life would be like without your collection, or lates, or whatever, simply omit that info when you're going through. I call the estimator my time machine, because it gives me an idea what things would be like if I could go back and pay my freakin' bills when they were due!
