If the difficulty is harder do you earn more experience?

at least it doesnt feel like so. you seem to get just as much

Yeah,i tend to think the same.

I don't think it does. After reading a couple of blogs/forums before purchasing the game I found a lot of people saying that Normal got boring because it was so easy.
So with no experience at all I cranked the difficulty to Elite.
I am loving the game so far and loving the challenge.

Yup normal is getting boring quickly as its too easy, i play vet mainly..as you get to ng+,++,+++ etc the game will be much harder if you didnt farmed/mf items much.