I agree with you. I set my $PS1 to just show the folder and the exit status of the previous command. I set the dirtrim to 2 so it looks something like this in action:

     0[~/.../a/folder]$ false
     1[~/.../a/folder]$

In my .bashrc:

    PROMPT_DIRTRIM=2
    PS1='\[\e]2;[\W]\$\a\]$(printf "%d" $?)[\w]\$ '