The better your google page rank, the higher you are listed in google search results. So in a way, it does matter. However you can target keywords, and use SEO to achieve first page results, even with a low page rank.

I used to have a page rank 4 warez site, and I recieved more traffic from google than from katz or any other DDL site. Now, it's very hard to get a good page rank with a warez site because of all the duplicate content.