Basically.

Historically, most Christians ignored Paul (at least, we don't have any record of any Christians appealing to him as any sort of authority) until around the early/middle of the 2nd century, when Marcion first appealed to Paul as an authority. As it turns out -- since Marcion was a heretic -- Acts of the Apostles was written to counter Marcion and his interpretation of Paul (see Marcion and Luke-Acts.

Marcion's Bible was the first Christian Bible, and it's simple happenstance of proto-Catholics modeling their Bible off of Marcion's model (Paul-obsession, really) that Paul seems to be such an important figure.