D80 Exposure & compensation

[JerryL]

I have a D80 and I am aware from several online reviews that this camera tends to "expose for the shadows", thus on a backlit subject can lead to blown highlights. I have a couple of issues that I just can't seem to get my head around

1. If the camera intelligently gets the exposure correct on the main subject at the expense of the background, if you dial in a permanent -0.7 (or more) exposure compensation, will this not lead to an incorrectly exposed darker subject but with the highlights correctly exposed? And if you end up with such a picture is that a bad thing i.e can the detail be pulled back into the main subject?
   
2. Is this only prominent in Matrix metering? Will the exposure behave differently in centre weighted or spot. My thoughts are that this would make things worse in that the camera senses a smaller portion of the dark subject and blow the highlights out more.

I am probably guessing this all wrong so would welcome any advice.