You're right about the film era.
I was the local pro shop about a month ago when someone came in looking at the D40 series. The salesman mentioned "....has the best metering system in an SLR"
Which, okay, is probably true, but with instant feedback, is that a real selling point? I know when you are in the field back in the old days, miles from your car, you better bracket or else...now it's shoot, check, repeat until you are satisfied.
(Which reminds me of when I tried to use ACR with Elements 4.0 with bracketed shots in RAW - ACR decided to auto fix my exposures, so they were all the same)