Menachot 24: Mixed Meal-Offerings by Proportion

Today's daf focuses on mixing the flour in the kometz, the handful of meal-offering offered by a priest.  Issues discussed include:

• the construction of the vessel - compartments, materials
• introducing too little or too much of any ingredient
• using one's finger to separate fit amounts of flour from other flour
• imparting ritual impurity across different barriers
• different amounts of offering 
• how ritual purity might be affected by different amounts of meal-offering

The specificity of today's measures is very telling.  Clearly the meal-offering is considered to be of great importance.  Is this because of its role in atonement?  Because of who might be doing the offering?  Because of another factor?