Could be but where would you put it?  I think that was the main reason for not having one.  Minolta are known to make the odd sacrifice in order to improve ergonomics.

My question is in reference to the rear color LCD monitor on the KM Maxxum 7D.  Would it have not been better to use a portion of the monitor area by designing a separate window which shows a constant aperture, shutter speed, ISO readout when the camera powers up similar to the one seen on the Canon EOS Digital Rebel rather than using a dual purpose monitor which briefly shows the readout?  Just a thought.
Of course there exists the possibility of increased battery drain
and that might be one reason it was excluded in favor of the dual approach.

ummm, isn't that imformation in the viewfinder where you need to be looking anyway to compose your picture?