Remembering the Kanji is for learning how to write kanji, which does help with reading as well, but that's not its primary purpose. If you actually do want to be able to write by hand (which I think most people (understandably) don't want to invest the time for), it's well worth the time investment.

> it's not something you should spend your entire focus on before you start learning the actual language of Japanese This is also true. You can do both. In fact I think you /should/ do both, learning new vocabulary using the kanji you've learned so far to help motivate you to learn more. It's quite addicting when you can see your progress day-to-day.