Is Structured Data So Important for Google?

Google loves structured data. They don't want to be if they can avoid crawling through and using, you know, lots of crawl time and server budgets for the good stuff. Structured data is exactly how you highlight that for Google and pick it out. And like you said, combining that with actual valuable content that proves again, coming back to the double EAT thing, you have experience, you're an expert, you're a your an authority in the space, and you are trustworthy to your customers.