On the truck you speak of, the 4wd mode buttons are in plain view at the top left of the dash, so a little 4x4 light on the dash would be in the same area, and could possibly be considered redundant. That truck would also only change modes with the truck running.
The trucks we're now talking about have a stupid dial with a tiny orange light that's always on, low on the dash, with visibility that's blocked by the steering wheel for most drivers. This dial can be rotated to any mode at any time whether the truck is off or on, and will seek that mode at the next key-up without any sort of indicator that the driver might notice. Seems like using the little green 4x4 light in the instrument cluster to remind or alert a driver that he's in a mode of operation that shouldn't be used on pavement would not have been redundant, it would have been good practice. They're already doing it for the manual shift trucks, and evidently on ZR2's, so why not on other trucks too? Because none of us is as dumb as all of us, as things go at most automakers... (IE, dumb decisions are made in meetings by people who individually wouldn't make such dumb decisions...)
