Why (if anything) is a planet clearing its neighborhood important?

[halfeye]

Let's assume, for the moment, this is accurate. So? Is it suddenly less interesting from a scientific standpoint? Is there any functional difference between calling it a "planet" as opposed to a "dwarf planet"?

For me personally, the word "planet" isn't that important either, it's the concept "planet" that matters, and the current definition of that is well and truly wonky, and should be replaced with something more sensible. The word "planet" could be replaced with "arglebargle" or "geronimo" and that wouldn't matter very much, though both of those would be much sillier than what we have.