I would pay a premium for it. The direct flight is still better than being interrupted halfway through your "night", and then having to trudge through a huge transfer airport just to get on another plane for another 8-14h. Also, the direct flight will be able to set the cabin lights and meal schedule optimally for you, unlike the stopover flights. And it's several hours quicker.

The downside is that it doesn't scale beyond the biggest city pairs: you'd need N^2 direct flights vs 2N flights via a hub.