I was completely disgusted to find out that having to cut out a bunch of words to get down to a lower word count made me a better writer. *g* It really does teach you to tighten and eliminate word-baggage. I rarely cut something out and then put it back in later. Usually I fret and agonize about cutting things, only to discover that the story reads better without it.
But that's mostly on the level of cutting out, say, 1000 words of a 10,000-word story, not halving it. I would say that while lowering the word count is important, don't sacrifice the story for it. Short story markets are pretty firm about their word counts (if you send them a 15,000-word story when the limit is 10K, they'll just send it right back) but there's a lot more wiggle room with novels. A novel that's above the "target" word count will probably be a harder sell to agents and publishers, it's true, but it won't sell at all if you cut so much out that the story is made weak or incomprehensible.
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But that's mostly on the level of cutting out, say, 1000 words of a 10,000-word story, not halving it. I would say that while lowering the word count is important, don't sacrifice the story for it. Short story markets are pretty firm about their word counts (if you send them a 15,000-word story when the limit is 10K, they'll just send it right back) but there's a lot more wiggle room with novels. A novel that's above the "target" word count will probably be a harder sell to agents and publishers, it's true, but it won't sell at all if you cut so much out that the story is made weak or incomprehensible.