Welcome sirmackdaddy, although you've only been here a matter of days, you've pretty much hit the nail on the head. The points are basically a means of comparing your progress against others.

What you may be interested in though, is that the time your computer contributes DOES go against the badge levels. So, if your computer contributes 14 days worth of work to one particular project, you'll get a Bronze badge against your name for that project. Silver = 45 days, Gold = 90, Ruby = 180, Emerald = 1 year and Sapphire = 2 years. Currently, Sapphire is the top level, although I'm pretty certain that, in due course, there'll be higher badges.

If you do decide to focus on badge hunting, then I'd suggest you firstly go for Help Conquer Cancer as that'll more than likely be the first project to finish, followed by Help Cure Muscular Dystrophy - Phase 2.