My understand of the pool even if you don't fine shares you can still find a block? So regardless if you submit shares or not it makes no difference since you're not sharing the block reward with a community of miners
NO! It makes no difference to other folks but
you MUST submit shares for a shot at the lottery. If you are trying to use say a Nerdminer (70kHs) and never are able to submit a share because it is a pretty TOY that is far far too slow, there is no way you can 'find a block'.
At a minimum, new work - a new share - is sent to everyone in the pool every time a block is found on the network. In response you must submit at least 1 share back to the pool before the next block is found (on average every 10min). Most folks receive and submit around 18 shares/min. Shares are proof that you have a valid miner that is doing work.