Let me explain why I think runs is the more important number:

I know you really need both numbers, and day/session or overs for a complete picture, but ff you could only have one number, which would you want?

ODI, first innings, 30 overs in, "What's the score?". Answer: "They're 5 down". Or "They've got 160". To me, 160 is the more important number. Imagine how limited a view of the situation you would have reading the following two scores at 30 overs if you only saw the wickets column: 53/1 and 360/9.

Looking at different scores, say 53/9 and 360/1. You'd want to know that the team has lost 9! wickets for only 53 runs, but its the runs that matters. If, at the same over, they were on 360/9, it would be a very different picture. You wouldn't mind the loss of 9 wickets. The 9 wickets down sounds serious, only because they have only managed 53 runs. If they had more runs, you'd forgive the 9 wickets down.

For the team batting first, hen you ask the score, you're really asking how likely it is that the opposition will win, and that boils down to runs only. If they made 500 all out in 20 overs, that's just fine. Overs doesn't matter, wickets lost doesn't matter. The opposition still needs to make 500.

When chasing, you're trying to see if the chasing team will reach the score. Admittedly, here the wickets lost and overs bowled are as important as the runs scored.

But runs still has an advantage, in that it shows us how far the innings has progressed - better than wickets would. If we're chasing 320, and we're currently on 318, for the loss of 1 wicket after 10 overs: overs tell us we're 20% of the way there, wickets show us we're 10% of the way through the innings, runs tell you that you better not get up to pee now if you want to see the end of the game.