Do learn proper stroke order as this is the basic and stroke order is a method that Chinese developed to unify the writing of Chinese Characters. Chinese Character are NOT pictures and stroke orders help you in 3 things:
1) It helps you remember the characters. The set way to write a character could help memory as you learn new words, you DO NOT need to always find a new way to draw the characters, a lot of old characters make up the new words.
一 十 才 木 米 粒 learn one and you can reuse old knowledge to construct new ones.
People who insists on writing their way will never really have this advantage at all. They are just learning new words every time.
2) It helps to reduce error.
Errors are the misspellings in English, we called them wrong characters or mistaken characters.(错别字)
Reasons for errors are due to unorganized way of writing characters which makes making errors very easy.
3) It build muscle memory.
Characters are almost always have certain lines and dots in certain positions so when you write, your muscles will get used to write every thing.
4) Your handwriting Will look better and helps in calligraphy.
Lastly, your Edictionary handwriting will need to use proper stroke to it to recognize words. if your stroke order are messy then your edictionary will never get find your word!