Practice makes imperfect?

I've looked through a lot of people's ratings on here. Mostly my tournament opponents, and have often noticed their peak ratings are sometimes hundreds of points higher than the present. A day or so ago I beat one guy rated 1544 in both the tourney games we played. Not cause I played all that good, but cause he didn't. His peak rating was 1841! I'm playing a guy right now whose rated 965, and his peak rating is 1350. Another example is a guy I played a long time ago who was rated 1940. When he finally deleted his account, his rating was 1340. I can't help but think all this practice is a waste of time since my rating is down over a hundred points right now.

 Why did you challenge me? To see how hard I suck.

My peak rating was close to 2100 about a year ago, at a time when I used to put a lot of effort into my games. Then I went to uni, and suddenly I was spending less time in isolation in halls of residence there and had a lot more to do than I did in my isolated village at home. Hence I put less effort into games and my rating slipped to sub-1900. I still learnt stuff over that period, just made a LOT more stupid mistakes and rushed move

I'd say a lot of people have similar stories in which they suddenly had less time to play chess. Also you only gave three examples . But your idea that practice is a waste of time in chess is majorly flawed. It's the only way to improve.

got it in one 

you are right studying a lot of various sources. tactics trainer, chess mentor, books videos and soon. is a lot of information that needs to be processed and may confuse you as a player.
a lot of advices are conflicing with each other.

having said that I really do not care about rating, I care about playing the best I can, and learning something.

it may be my imagination but I think I understand some elements of game deeper and deeper.
I think if I become real good not 1800 good - I think rating will come by it self.

 I don't care about rating in and of itself, but I want to feel I'm getting somewhere, and not just spinning my wheels, and wasting my time.

What wheels?

 Mine.

Even though everyone always says practice makes perfect, its wrong. Perfect practice makes perfect. You (and others) may need to look at how you are practicing to see if something in how you are practicing isn't helping/ is hurting.

our game strengths go up and down.  i've been over 1900 in bullet here and am currently hundreds below that.  i just can't win lately. 

Don't forget the time-outs that happen.When a 1800 loses because of time-out, my rating will increase. this doesn;t mean I became a better player.

 I know, but what does that have to do with this thread?

 If someone new wins something like 3 games on time to high rated players, that players rating might skyrocket and then as he plays and loses/wins to those closer to his rating, it will drop. This is just one example of how you might see someone with a highest rating of 1900, and currently be at 1340.

 I see what you're saying.

 I honestly don't know where you people find all those pics.

Imperfect practice makes imperfect. Hall of Fame second baseman Rhyne Sandberg would take only 10 ground balls to warm up before a game, but he was focused and made sure his technique was perfect.

Reevaluate your training methods. If you've hit a ratings plateau, maybe a coach could help.

Even if practice makes perfect, it doesn't mean that you can't go through slumps.

From a musician's point of view, practice does NOT make perfect; perfection in music is not the goal, but expression is.  Strong practice makes IMPROVEMENT!  We all have periods in which we work hard, but the improvements seems to elude us.  My suggestions are to change how you work, to create some freshness in your approach, and to find inspiration from new sources.

Let others worry about ratings.  Focus on doing your best; play to win; enjoy the process.