The significance of Gladstonefamily.net is that it was designed to present the MADIS analysis in simple and quick to understand graphs and error reports. This is not the only place to get analysis because you could go to MesoWest and get some analysis there too but it is a much simpler report that that doesn't give all the depth of detail. You could also go to MADIS Surface Map and get a quality control report card but again that is basically just telling you if you pass or fail and then it is up to you to figure out how to fix things.
Gladstonefamily.net analysis only includes MADIS results if you are in the US or Canada. But that doesn't mean that Gladstonefamily.net is useless for anyone else as you do still show up for any station elsewhere. It allows you to see graphs of your own data. You can also use it to then create custom graphs of your station compared to a neighbor station to sort of create your own analysis. This is something I do even with stations that don't automatically show up as being neighbors. There are a couple stations to me that are near but Gladstonefamily.net doesn't present them to me automatically. To do this you can manipulate the URL to create these custom graphs with the stations you want. In the comparison URL you basically insert &addnl=XNNNN where XNNNN is a station ID and it makes that station's graph show up alongside your station in the same graph. It might even be useful to compare two places in different parts of the world to see differences in weather, to compare highs and lows on any given day for example. The easiest way to start is to choose a nearby station and then in the resulting URL you can then modify it to the stations you want, as it isn't limited to just two. Just keep adding more &addnl=XNNNN one after the other.
Gladstonefamily.net has also been criticized by many that it inappropriately compares you to neighbors whose data could be all wrong and your data is the only one that is okay, and thus you end up with bad analysis reports and thumbs down and red X's. So these analysis and reports should be taken lightly, especially if you know your stuff is right. But I would say that in most cases it is useful and informative. Gladstonefamily.net sometimes glitches and it isn't the fault of any neighboring station. This last happened October 2018. I don't know the frequency of these glitches but lets put it at maybe once or twice a year, as I've read old CWOP posts and I see evidence that this has happened before.
Being on CWOP does feel like an old archaic system in many ways. There are so many components to it that can add some complexity to understand everything that is going on. Being on CWOP is more like a synergy of different systems and networks coming together to each play a roll in delivering information and an experience. There are lots of dead links in the various related sites and outdated information, with sometimes conflicting information, and it has not been kept up to date in many ways. But there is nothing else quite like it. It is the only way to be a part of something rather large and very important. So yes it feels as ancient as it really is, but once you master what it has to offer it can feel very powerful and useful.
I invite you to take a look a this thread that discusses all the places your data ends up at by being a part of CWOP.
https://www.wxforum.net/index.php?topic=35089.0