I wouldn't say that you were missing anything. To each his own. You are right to "ignore it all" when "getting an award seemed silly" to your son.
For us, an award matters because it is recognition that he has high cognitive abilities/achievements and that such cognitive abilities/achievements are actually good and important. The fact that DS didn't study is irrelevant to him. The high scores resulted from a life-long habit of curiosity and independent learning - googling for information and picking up any reading material lying around. It's similar to PSAT scores - I didn't study but the recognition was nice rather than silly to me and I guess to most of the other honorees I knew.
