A
meter is not very useful for balancing lighting, at least not as useful as actually chimping which gives you a fairly faithful representaion of ratios. I don't bother using meters, and I have plenty of them (even with the wiz-bang Pocket Wizard radio triggers built in), simply because it's easier to chimp, although this seems to be too low brow for some to cope with. You really won't be any more professional, creative, efficient etc etc with a
meter.
If all you are doing is shooting indoors with strobes then a
meter is potentially quite handy because you can quickly reposition a
light and check it's intensity with the
meter. Especially if you've found a way you like to work, ie
aperture/
shutter speeds that you like to use so you can set the lights to suit. I think they are potentially fine in that scenario. But I still prefer to chimp because I would do that anyway so I'm just eliminating a step!
I use strobes outdoors almost all the time, both balanced with other lighting and as the entire
light source, and I don't bother to bring any meters, ever. It's more of a hassle than it's worth.
JJ