When I'm converting from 44.1k at 32-bits to 48k for 24-bit/48k release, how concerned do I need to be with pre- and post-filtering?
Well, since the idea is to get rid of potential aliasing, then not at all in the direction you're going in!
As for the quality slider, Syntrillium said that it didn't make a lot of difference at any setting over 250 - but the argument made about this applies more to downsampling, especially when converting to 16-bit. Personally I don't think that you could measure a lot of difference at settings between 250 and 999, but it certainly takes longer to do the sums when it's set higher. With modern processors, I doubt whether this is much of an issue though.