The ratio of registered candidates and those making at least one submission is bad. Only 9249 out of 21518 will be rated; this leads to either a very small increase in the rating of players rated below 1400. I think it's because of the increasing difficulty of 1st questions in the contest(which is a good thing, I think), so if the system rated everybody who registered, it would be much fairer for those who actually submitted; some OJs do this already.
Codeforces Round #853 (Div. 2) out of 24262, 7432 candidates will be rated.
Educational Codeforces Round 143 (Rated for Div. 2) out of 27849, 13755 candidates will be rated.
Codeforces Round #852 (Div. 2) out of 25361, 9339 candidates will be rated.
These are the stats of the last 4 rated contests; 1st one is in the paragraph, do comment on your thoughts about this.
If you value your rating above failing and then learning from questions(the hard way), you have already lost :D
Rating is how u track ur progress, saying that it's not important at all is ridiculous. I do get ur point though.