Sadly I didn’t spend much time in the darkroom myself. I did shoot with film for a while but generally had it developed commercially. I certainly do agree that it took more of an understanding of exposure and how to use the camera to get the exposure you wanted. Modern cameras for all the benefits also make it very easy to dial in an exposure based on the view on the lcd and that seems to some extent to lessen the need for users to understand as much as was needed in the past.