Someday I will put together an article that articulates and explains it all better, but for now...
See the following link of one image from this website, the whole thing is good.
http://www.shorpy.com/node/5073?size=_original
This whole site is perfect for my point. If I just showed you that photo, you might just think, "nice shot", there just wouldn't be much there. It's the place and date that makes it come alive. Now you go from a photo, to being transported to a place and time. Now with the info below the photo, you look at it and go "ah, LA, and 1960, so that's what 1960 looked like, in that place". It's a completely different photo. And in that photo, even without the info, you might guess the place, and you might guess the timeframe based on the ladies in the photo. But many many photos even on that site, you can't tell where it was, or when. You could be off by decades on your guess (real early color photo shots will really throw you).
Soon as that other info is added, it changes everything, now there is a story, the image is a living history book, not just a snap shot of something. To me a photo is empty without the time and place, only 1/3rd of the story or soul of the image is there. It will never have the same connection as photos on that site have.
And if you don't have it at capture, it's lost. Remember shooting with film, carrying around a note pad, writing down lens, shutter, aperture, time, place. Then having to get that all linked up with your photos later on, writing it all on the back. What a pain in the bum that was. Then EXIF came and changed it all. Now it's increadible tool. And people even get in arguments over images when it's not included.
I get angry just finding I had the date wrong on the camera, as it now is messed up history. But now that I don't have location, it's still 1/3rd missing. You can't go back. You most likely may never know where it was taken. You forgot where it was, so on and so forth. If it wasn't done automatically at capture, it's nearly good as gone. But with GPS, it's there, it's locked into the photo from the start. No more having to remember, our tools can do it for us. And even help us massively in adding more info, or learning more about what we took.
I think what many people miss is they think about a photo in the right now sense. Well, the date and time of a photo you take today doesn't matter right now. It takes time. The time of a photo doesn't start to really matter for probably 15-20 years. Then it hits you more. Now you are looking back at a different era, a different generation. That's where it hits. And the place has a very big impact too, as it can be surprising, and make you think about it different. So from the same site, the follow photo which I find a bit entrancing, maybe because it is so to my point.
So you look at it and think, ok, 1960's photo of a girl in the UK. Might make you think a few things, and such. But then I tell you I lied. It's not 1960. This is shot in 1915! This is nearly 100 years old, and looks like anyone could have taken this of their daughter today and converted to B&W. Now you get thinking. And further, it wasn't the UK, it was washington DC. Now what you thought just shifted again some. Now your brain starts to take it in. This girl, is before most the history of the 20th century. After this, she most likely grew up, married, would have seen her sons fight in WWII, her grand children go to Vietnam, Watched the moon landing as an older woman, been retired, watched great grand kids and so forth and now she most likely has passed away of old. Out side that house she is in, is probably a horse someplace close. She lived before nuclear, before space travel, before the computer.. And the moments of her life and what unfolds is completely different. The above would have been different had it said the UK, or Germany. Even if I had said LA instead of DC, it would have invoked different thoughts. Everything changes with Time and Place. This story has a soul, it is a portal through time with so much back story simply because 2 pieces of information are with it. The quality of the image begins to matter much less, though it's pretty good for the time. The gear used doesn't matter very much, though many would be curious (it was a glass plate by the way).
Without a place and a time, this would be just a photo in a box. Looking at it wouldn't mean anything to people. A lot of folks would say something about the bird moving some "should have used a faster shutter" "clearly not a pro" "he thought a shot like this was salable? that's as dumb as the guy shooting santas on parade". Well, 100 years later it's a very different shot.
This is why Time and Place matter. It's what makes the photo. Of course if your shooting some product shot for a mag, no one probably cares. Though if I saw just the photo 50 years later, I would want to know when it's from and such. I also find the persons name can change it. You probably have one expectation of this girls name, but what if it was something russian sounding. That would add mystery too it. So for a shot of models, the name of the model may be what adds so much to the photo in time. Especially decades later when maybe the family of that person does a search and here is a model of their mother as a young woman, now that's something for that person.
We have had the tech for years to do GPS. It provide a critical part of what a photo is. And the fact it's not available in every camera just simply sickens me. If I had gone nikon when I was debating A700 verses D300 to replace my 7D it would have been so different now for me. But even still, we can do much better than what Nikon does. I would strip out a lot of stuff in a camera to have GPS in it, LV, video, scene modes, etc, none of them add to the story of the photo. Photography is so much more than the image. An image without the rest is pretty much nothing. An Ansel Adams print just wouldn't be the same without the date and place they all have. His like so many other things transport you. "Moonrise over some town" year unknown. Just doesn't have the same impact.
Me, I'd like 500th second flash sync, better noise and definitely wireless file transfer. If I could get those three at the same time... I'd be worth another $700 on the A900 to me hands down.