Proven to matter


Soloway & Ehrlich:
     It is not merely a matter of aesthetics that programs
     should be written in a particular style.  Rather there
     is a psychological basis for writing programs in a
     conventional manner: programmers have strong
     expectations that other programmers will follow these
     discourse rules.  If the rules are violated, then the
     utility afforded by the expectations that programmers
     have built up over time is effectively nullified.

In short, consistency matters.

Lots of other research backs this up.