I sometimes pay attention to the pre-flight briefing, mostly to be polite to the person performing it. The probability of actually benefiting from this briefing is insignificant in my case. US1549 doesn't change that (yet, at least). For the pre-flight briefing to be useful (for me), the following conditions will have to be met:
1) The pre-flight briefing must change, since I already know its content, it has absolutely no value.
2) An incident must occur, to which the pre-flight information actually applies.
3) The incident must be of such a nature that the pre-flight info is my sole source, meaning no instructions or new briefing by crew superseeding the initial brief, which would render it worthless.
4) The incident must of such a nature that the outcome of which actually depends on my behavior is aligned with the pre-flight briefing.
The chances of this occuring? Well, if I fly a couple of flights every day, it will probably take me about a million years to encounter this perfect storm. And
I'm the idiot for not paying attention?
Of course, this does not mean I'm not concerned with safety, it merely suggests that I rely on probability to guide my decision making. In that respect, US1549 was quite interesting, in the sense that I've learned a lot about ditching, for example the brace technique for US Air and that certain doors are best left closed when in water. The various reports also give a good understanding of what to expect in terms of chaos, irrational behavior and challenges in the evacuation process. This is new and interesting stuff, in stark contrast to the run-of-the-mill safety briefing.