My point is, the arrangement of long and short syllables is the basis for the metrical organization, and if you ignore vowel length, that organization and the interest it creates is lost.
I fully agree with you from theoretical standpoint. If anyone is curious about metrics, of course, he has to analyse verses through quantity.
As for appreciation of poetry, I'm afraid I can't share your enthusiasm.
In Pannonius' line every other heavy syllable is
prominent in a way. That's ictus. So in order to appreciate the verse, you have to take into account not only quantity, but ictus as well, even though it's deductible from quantity. AFAIK we don't know what exactly ictus is, but in practice, stress is commonly substituted.
Now I confess that when I read with dynamic stress
quAE t' ultrA tellUs, quae, I can't hear any metre but trochee, i. e. I perceive it as a verse in my native language. The equivalence of one heavy syllable and two light ones worked for Romans, but doesn't work for my ear. This means I'm unable to perceive the interplay of quantity as intended. If I say that
gEns feret, Inclyte rEgum sounds all right for me, it's probably not thanks to quantities, but because it sounds like dactyl in my language. All in all, I think I perceive Latin poetry as if it were stress-based verse in a modern language with trochees disrupting the rhythm. Difficult meters (Horace?) just confuse me and I can't hear the pattern whatever.
Great if it's different for you.