That's a great question.
The answer is that neither one is important by itself. Your goal is to maximize ROI (return on investment) which requires playing each hand for the highest EV instead of focusing on goals like cashing, final tabling, or winning.
Sometimes ROI maximization means that you'll make a tight fold to squeak into the money as a mid stack. Sometimes it means you'll play very aggressively near the final table to pressure shorter stacks.
But the focus is on doing what's best for the situation instead of aiming specifically to cash or final table.
This is exactly the point. In my last session I cashed in 1 out of 5 tournaments, and near the bubble I was a below average stack. Some players were very short and one of them sitting out as well. So for that reason I stalled the action as much, as I could. Took the maximum time whenever the turn got to me.
However I did not stop playing hands. In fact I open jammed 4-5 times during this period, when for instance I picked up KQo in CO with a 12BB stack. This time I picked it up each time, so I actually ended up accumulating a lot of chips during the bubble play. But I still stalled to increase my chance of min-cashing rather than letting someone with 1-2 blinds cash instead of me.
And this time a min-cash was all, I got. After the bubble burst, I had around 18-19BB, and when I opened AK, someone jammed on me. Easy call of course, he flipped over AT, and he hit a T on the river. And the point is, you cant PLAN on "winning the tournament", because at any time a bad beat or cooler can send you out. And then its better to go out with a min-cash than with nothing.