K. Silem Mohammad is bored by meter, and he's quite right about the "irrelevance of scansion as a critical tool" except when, for example, knowing the meter might determine where a doubtful stress might fall and thus give weight to a particular reading of a poem. But who ever claimed scansion to be the defining tool of the poetry critic? Who ever said Saintsbury, for instance, was a great critic? It's like claiming that being able to name the time-signature and the intervals in a melody makes one a music critic.
Recognizing meter is (usually) pretty easy; it's writing well in meter that's damned hard. It's a craft, and like all crafts, only developed by a long apprenticeship, by memorizing and imitating, by an asymptotic approach to competence and, perhaps, mastery. Andres Segovia, in his 80s, still practiced scales for hours every day—talk about boring! And after all that, being good at writing metrically doesn't guarantee being a good poet, or a poet at all, although it is, perhaps, a better filter against self-indulgence than exists in free-verse practice.
What being good at meter can do is give the poet a back-door, through sheer sensuality, into the reader's or listener's mind. It can make one's poetry more memorable. It can also make bad arguments more convincing just because they are more memorable, which is, perhaps, behind the L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E poets' distrust of meter. Fair enough. But why would anyone give up tools because they are effective? And what poet does not want to affect the minds of readers?
My last post generated some thoughtful and passionate response in the comments and at Antonio Savoradin's and Robert Flach's blogs. I can see I need to be clearer, and this weekend I'll try. Music and travel coming up, and I'll be in NC where my net connection is iffy at best.
11:26:54 PM 
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