My first "pro" camera was a Nikon F. I started out shooting theatrical stuff (mostly documenting my own work for my portfolio) and I needed the reliability and precision of the Nikons. I've always had an F or F2 and it's always been my preferred 35mm still camera. Because of the lighting situation in theatre I learned early on to meter off-camera, and never went back. So I learned to prefer a simpler camera with manual control and no meter. As I began to tinker with my cameras in the late 90s and early noughts (when repair shops were getting harder to find) I quickly came to prefer cameras with simpler mechanisms and good engineering. By then I was working with cinematographers (who also metered off-camera) and began to tinker with movie cameras too. I picked up several Konvas and Kinor 35mm motion picture cameras for my own projects and of necessity learned how to repair those. Again, simplicity of design ruled.
So as a shooter, I already preferred simplicity and reliability together with an absence of "features" that made decisions for me. A meterless F2 is still my go-to 35mm still camera and I've come to rely on Mamiya C2 and C220 when I shoot 120 for the same reasons. Functions are mostly mechanical and visible to the eye and the parts are machined to a high standard and interchangeable between cameras.
Favorites to work on: Nikon F2, Mamiya C2, Arri 2C and 16BL, Kinor 35N(H), Primo Jr/Sawyers Mk IV (I shoot a lot of 127 and the Topcon lenses are good).