I inevitably read CVs with a cover letter before those without (unless the cover letter looks like a wall of text). All I ask of a cover letter is that it reminds me to think of you as a human, nothing more; reading lists of projects, employers or education achievements is very dry and mechanical otherwise.

A bad cover letter is going to be worse than none, but it really takes very little effort to have something decent and reusable. Many modern CV forms include a small space for it, that's less than ideal but still ok.