Hitting the meter dead center is tough yes but its made a lot easier by learning the distances on your putter. Don't use a 30 ft scale for a 26 ft putt, use a higher sale and drag the meter a shorter distance as this makes the meter easier to stop on center. You should practice putts so that you can hit every one no more than 2 ft past the cup in any green condition and irrespective of up/downhill lie.
This comes with practice and is one of the hardest things to get good at. Once you achieve this control you can then start to trust your reading of the break and most importantly understand your misses. In almost all putts under 30 ft I know why ive missed and its usually cos ive missed hitting center, when i hit center its usually going in.
Most important thing is distance control and learning the way standard/fast greens affect this. Which I think is the first thing nivlac touches on in his excellent tutorial.
I just dont see how not hitting center can give the precision that is needed to putt consistently especially given that doing that affects distance control as well.