In short, yes - META tags are important. But not all of them.
Purely from search engine listings - Always include a useful META DESCRIPTION thats unique for every page - even if that doesn't bump you up the rankings, a good succinct description will do wonders for your click throughs and bounce rates, because people are more likely to think they can find what they are looking for.
I would also include META KEYWORDS although it should be said that its probably of no use - so I generally pick out some site wide keywords and use them throughout.
Other META tags have uses such as the ROBOTS tag, and the like - but they are for other purposes.
