longisland.km, Ron Hew, read Tim's comment at the top of the page.
Ron, this whole "Nikon has it, so we should have it" line of thought smacks more of kids in a playschool grabbing toys off each other just so they can say they have them, rather than of any legitimate need for a given photographic function.
The fact that 1D bodies have some functions that xxD - and the 7D - don't have, can easily be seen as confirmation that they are seen as appropriate to a certain target audience: you might not agree, but their presence in the 1D bodies surely doesn't disprove the idea of them being "niche".
Most photographers don't need a pro body, so you can actually argue that everything about them is intended, in the first instance, to cater to a specific subset of the market.
A niche in other words...
That's not to say that we might not covet some of these functions, but the fact remains that - whether for cost or for product differentiation reasons - Canon has seen fit to keep some functions out of non 1D bodies, and yet I'm willing to bet any money that for the vast majority of us, the inability to extend exposure bracketing beyond the arbitrary limit imposed by Canon, or the inability to link exposure to AF point, doesn't hurt our photography one little bit.
I couldn't care less that Nikon does things differently - my Canon cameras still work really well despite Nikon's business decisions.
Hell, I'd love "proper" Auto ISO and native AF at f/8 in my 40D and in the 7D (looks like the 7D has the Auto ISO): believe me, I "need" these every bit as much as anyone might need wider exposure bracketing or AF point linked metering, but I don't cry myself to sleep over the lack of them.