APA Format

What do you think about APA formatting? Do you think it adds to a paper or does the need for attention to form detract from the ability to demonstrate knowledge of a subject? I had one professor who was so hung up on formatting that he completely disregarded the content of what I wrote as a result. If it were not for doing well on the class quizzes, I would have failed simply because not enough emphasis is placed on demonstrated knowledge, which makes me wonder if there were people who spewed absolute garbage and managed to pass simply on the form?