Yes, with Google especially. Traditional meta tags don't count for a whole lot. The actual content of the site is what matters. However a limited number of them in the header doesn't hurt either and "meta information" is important to have with images or at least descriptive names. For example if you have a photo of John Smith it better to called it johnsmith.jpg instead of image01.jpg for example.

If you do have a set if "key words" that are important to your business/web site" consider how they can be used in the actual content. I'm almost at the point of changing what I tell people I do. Instead of saying I'm a web designer or web developer I am seriously looking at telling people I am a Content Management Professional or something to that effect for the reason I concentrate more on using content management software instead of designing static pages, I am big on compelling content, using RSS and intelligent SEO.