Appearance is no more than its scoring: it's worth half as much as tenderness, and tenderness is worth half as much as taste.
A good quality meat product, with great taste and tenderness, is always first and foremost. The prettiest food won't win if it's tough and tasteless.
That being said, people discuss appearance a lot on the Internet because it's the one thing that can be conveyed through a photo. Nobody here can accurately assess taste or tenderness, but we can all look at and comment on layout, shine, garnish etc.
Appearance points are absolutely valuable, you can't leave points on the table because of sloppy presentation that detracts from the meat -- but when it's all said and done, the larger emphasis
in scoring is on the meat's attributes, not the appearance. Doesn't keep us from posting pictures, though