Should Designers Care About Standards?

I like the idea of web standards. The concept attracts me for several reasons, which may or may not be of interest to people.
I’m not a designer or developer, so what I think about it is purely academic. I may wish to voice my opinions on it, but it is not my place to judge.. .. Or should I, as a consumer, expect that design / development professionals work to certain standards?
It’s not an easy question to answer, so I thought I’d ask over on the search.ie webmaster forum
A couple of the responses to date have been very interesting..