This is something which I try to express to fellows on the Path that is often unaddressed. Touching on the last part of your post, about why pushing thoughts away or judging some to be better or worse than others isn't always (if ever) effective.
Addressing the nature of thoughts is incredibly important. Meditating isn't simply about pushing thoughts to the background. Furthermore, addressing past emotional traumas and issues is often more important for those on the Path than meditating is.
Looking deeply into the nature of a thought can quieten it forever. For example, a realization I've had today. I've always struggled with sexual thoughts. They come, and they come hard. (Pun not intended.) A lot of them are wildly inappropriate, and for most of my life I've tried to push them away. They would always keep coming back with vigor.
Today, instead of trying to meditate these thoughts away, I inquired deeply into their nature. I didn't just let the thought pass, I asked it where it came from and why it had been bothering me for so many years. Turns out these thoughts stemmed from a lot of confusion about self-worth that originated in high school as a result of the hyper-sexualization of western society.
I won't go into more detail here, because that's not the point. The point is that by inquiring into a certain thought pattern can really silence it forever. After (a fairly painful) deep inquiry, I followed the thought pattern down to its beginnings, and pulled it out from the root. There is a very distinct feeling when this occurs, one that I can't quite put my finger on. A weight is lifted.
When this happens, one can be certain that this particular thought pattern has been evicted from their being and will not bother them again. So while this might not be a 'typical' facet of meditation, it can certainly improve meditation in the long run. Overtime, as mentioned in the post above, this will exhaust the mind of unnecessary thought, leaving it in a state of clarity and silence.
(At this point in the discussion, someone seemed to have sexual thoughts confused with sexual energy, and pointed out that sexual energy cannot and should not be repressed. This is true - sexual energy should be worked with and harnessed for an individual's benefit, but I see that perhaps I needed to clarify what I said above).
I think perhaps the best way for me to explain this would be to discuss where one thinks that theirthoughts originate from. Thoughts, particularly disturbing ones, are intrinsically linked to some experience that a person has undergone or some psychological trait that they have developed.
Emotional processing is one of the ways in which we can work through these difficult thought patterns.
Processing can allow one to discern the root of a particular train of thought. Trains of thought can be utilized in much the same way that repeating external circumstances can be indicative of a behavioural pattern. By now, most of us recognize that if we keep falling into the same life situation over and over, we're reliving a karmic pattern or manifesting some unaddressed issue from our subconscious.
Trains of thought can be observed in the same manner, the main difference being that you can catch them before they become dominant enough to actually change your external reality. In this sense, you can follow the train of thought to its origin - much like you would observe the variables in a repeating life situation - to deduce exactly what aspect of your being is involved in creating the situation/thought pattern.
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