Absolutely, and there are plenty of feel good exercises out there. I'm not into the idea of a bunch of elaborate break in procedures. Fleet experience, as you indicate, has shown otherwise, and not just recently. I still, however, don't feel it's a bad idea to get any excess debris out of the engine early. It may not add life across the board, but it certainly can help if something was done a little more lazily in the factory, like we see with the Vettes over the past couple years.
You bring in all Camry owners in for an oil change after 1,000 or 2,000 miles after delivery, and you'll hear a lot of grousing. You bring Vette owners in after the first 1,000 or 2,000 miles, and that could very well be two years after purchase. Even with OLMs, plenty of these guys are changing much earlier than that, anyhow, given the things kick off by time rather than mileage for people that drive them seasonally and even then only on weekends.