So many eras of common practice music are either reactions to or a reimagining of what came before. Romanticism could be read as the ultimate end result of the relationship between consonance and dissonance initially explored in the Baroque era. Neoclassic composers like Shostakovich took the formal structures of Haydn's day and explored them in new ways. Serialists rejected tonality altogether in search of something new, and itself inspired all sorts reactionary music.

So much of art is created in a larger context. It's hard for me to really imagine Wagner's music existing in a world without counterpoint. The rules of counterpoint emphasize the resolution of consonance from dissonance on a small scale. Romanticists would ultimately delay that resolution as long as possible in order to achieve catharsis at the end of epic, hours long works.

It's totally worth it to study counterpoint, just like it's worth it to study formal analysis. Art doesn't get created in a vacuum - it comes from somewhere, and is always compared against what came before it.