The national rating is much more important then the FIDE Elo for most players i know. Nearly every tournament like team matches in the lower sections, club championships etc. here are rated national, but only much higher team match sections and open tournaments are FIDE rated. So in my club only four out of fourty players have a FIDE rating.
One of the other guys plays FIDE rated games only in senior tournaments (age 60+). He has 450 points less national rating then me (very realistic!), but his FIDE rating is only 100 points lower then mine.
I really want to know that if fide rating is important and is it that hard to get because I have 1300 fide rating standard but in chess.com standard in nearly 1700