I think that the pre-flight briefing is useful and important. Useful to the approx 30% of flyers who have at least some nervousness about flying and want to have some sense that the guys/gals upfront are competent and professional. [I'm not a nervous flyer but I do raise my eyebrows at some of Ryanair's pilots - I'm sure they are all competent and professional, it's just that doesn't always come across in their terse welcome. At the other extreme the absence of commentary from some AA pilots makes me wonder just how committed they are, it can be pretty transactional].

But the other factor is giving information on weather, delays and arrival time. So if the flight is going to be a bone shaker, I'm not going to try too hard to get onto Wifi, and if there are mentions of slots / holds then I may not do an FCOD on the next flight. But in the EC261 thread there are dozens of examples of people who want to know why their flight was late and clearly didn't listen to the best source of information - from the flight deck - as to the cause of delay. I know the information is given, I've been on a few sectors where the OP swears they were not told and I know that it was since I was also there. I also think it is useful if the captain gives some indication of the routing just in case there is something to look out for from the windows. The best one, on AA of all places, was a captain alerting us to a pod of whales going past Vancouver Island, that was a once off experience.