in my opinion, is the stroke order important or not depends what you want, if writing is for the others could read, in this level, right or wrong stroke is not important, because people could read and get understand, but if you want to get the others enjoy your chinese characters, you'd better follow the stroke order. in another way, the stroke order is one of the calligraphy technic, if you don't follow the classical stroke order, and your order is accepted by peoples, then you are a great calligraphy master:D
that's what i think, i don't know if i could make you understand, because my english is not good, so sorry about that:D