Without going into anything too explainatory;
You can have all the horsepower in the world, high revving, blah blah; but you compensate the RPM peak with steep gears- or a "sort of" replacement for torque.
I would honestly say, that horsepower and RPMs are the whip, but you've gotta have the torque to get you through the powerband, without feeling like a dog at low rpms. IMHO
What kind of numbers is your engine pushing?