We talk a lot about peak brightness, which is useful in some scenarios like you mentioned.
But you know whats more interesting?
Brightness stepping, min brightness and ambient light sensors; which are never talked about by reviewers, which is then a weird cycle because manufacturers seem to care a lot about what reviewers focus on.
Not necessarily, I would choose using other factors. I argue we should rely less on rarely practical characteristics (maximum power / brigthness) and add more day-to-day aspects into reviews and search filters.
There are few qualities usually mentioned along side displays: size, technology, resolution, colour rating, contrast ratio, and max brightness. I think brightness matters less past some point and we really should focus more on traits listed by @boplicity and @dijit (there's got to be more).
Similarly with cars: I don't care about top speed as long as it goes upto the motorway limit, I don't care about engine power as long as car feels nice in real life; I pay attention to size (will it be comfortable in the city and in my tight parking lot?), fuel consumption, interior quality, luggage space, steering sensations.
> Just like if a MacBook Pro came in either 1600nits or 400nits, you’d pick 400?
Well, if the 400 nits one has an advantage (for example it has OLED, so only the letters will burn my eyes in the evenings, not the whole area of the screen) then I would pick that one.