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There are probably a 100 reasons why presentation is important. But a laundry list of reasons won't get the point across as effectively as a story can. Here's an interesting anecdote I read recently:

Gary Bush’s passion for his craft [makes him my most memorable teacher]. I took a course called Presentation Fundamentals from him (really, a 3-day Trainer's Training class that, by far, surpassed [another] 5-day class I also took) back in the early 1990's. I still remember it vividly to this day, plus still often use the training materials from that class. I then had the pleasure of developing an entire corporate training curriculum with him and credit him for my learning of the teaching/training craft.

My favorite memory of Gary is from the He came into the classroom after a break - no introduction, no explanation, no talking - looking rather disheveled. He started serving pieces of cake by scooping them out with his bare hand and onto brown bathroom-type paper towels. He didn't get very many takers for pieces of cake.

He then left the room and reappeared a few minutes later dressed like a waiter from a fine dining establishment. He had the cake on a fancy rolling serving cart, along with silver, china, and cloth napkins. He served up the cake again, spoke politely to each prospective cake-eater, and obviously got quite a different response the second time round. He then debriefed the whole event with the gist of the message received by the students (without a second of "lecture") being, "it's all in the presentation." The cake was still the same cake, but the audience members' reactions sure were different.

I read this anecdote in an ebook called My Most Memorable Teacher (or Trainer). It’s an amazing compilation of stories put together by Elliot Maise.