The better you get with meter, the more easily you'll be able to smooth out any ambiguities that are caused by accent or the writer's own personal system of emphasis. By the way, except in the most basic sense, meter is not driven by the number of syllables. A line of eight syllables might have four feet, three or even two. It is feet that matter, and feet are determined by stresses -- so it IS important that you understand how other people will place the stresses in a line. Once it's posted, you are not the only reader anymore.
It could be worse