In my past few rentals, the dial still acts on the driver's gauges - but not on the "entertainment / navigation" screen which remains too bright no matter what! In one, the automatic "night mode" was still crazy bright and independant from the dashboard brightness dial. Absurd indeed.

My 2006 car had an independent brightness setting for the infotainment screen but that's likely because the infotainment system just wasn't as fully integrated into the car as it is today. It wasn't a touchscreen so since everything had a button, you could have easily designed it to use a VFD or similar.

In my Mazda, turning on the headlights enables a night mode in the both the instrument panel and stereo/etc screen, dimming everything. Which seems like a nice touch, but if I want to run with my headlights on during the day, as seems to be fairly customary these days, that means I can't read my clock. Not great.