Newbie Question: Speaker Mounting

I understand it is somewhat important to mount speakers in such a way as to minimize vibrational coupling to the surrounding structures, hence the effort to strongly damp speaker stands, etc.

First Question: How important is the quality of damping in speaker stands? Can you hear the difference? Is the sand thing more for sound quality or more so your kid doesnt push the speaker over?

Second Question: What about wall mounting? I have found no info on the technical issues of wall mounting. Do wall mounted speakers sound worse than speakers on stands? Are there things you can do to improve the quality of wall mounting? Do the problems with wall mounting have more to do with vibrational coupling with the wall or with clearance between the speaker and wall?

I wall mounted my 170s to keep the kids from knocking them over. I mounted them above my the top of my TV and it improved the sound and imaging a good deal to not have the TV between them.