I have just cast my vote in the Poll for Super Important.  It's the principal way I strive to improve my skills as a writer, by getting "inside" the writing of others as much as I am allowed to get "inside" given my own experience and skills and given the skills of the writer I'm reading.  Sometimes the one is wanting; sometimes the other.  But when a piece of writing knocks me back on my heels, I want to figure out, as best I can, how the writer packed such a punch, why the writing rocked me in such a way.  And when it doesn't, I sometimes, not always, but sometimes, try to figure out the how and why of my failure to connect (with the whole, or a portion) resulted. 

I'll never be finished learning the how's of this craft and I am an amateur critic, at best.  And a selfish one, too, for I read selfishly, just as I write.