I believe a small clarification is helpful here: it is my understanding that upsampling causes no problem. Having your DAW read a 16-bit, 44.1 K file and convert it to a higher bit or sample rate does not affect the audio quality in any way.

Downsampling that same file back to the CD quality, by removing those empty extra bits of an upsampled file, also would have no effect. It is only downsampling by dithering in the case of a higher rate file that does have data in those extra bits, that can affect the file. Thus I do agree with the bottom line, that making conversions that are not necessary is to be avoided, as stated, but only if you have material that was originally recorded at higher rates.

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