One of the reasons I never shoot the D7100 with significant underexposure like I will when shooting night sports with the D810. I usually shoot -2 stops to keep the ISO from climbing and pull the shadows pretty hard, though there are still deep shadows left in a night a lot of night shots.
This is another factor which is not discussed much, the benefits of an ISO-less camera. I used Canon cameras for many years and one of the first things I had to grapple with was the necessity of getting an ETTR exposure in relation to the best choice of ISO, in order to achieve the minimum noise. In other words, whatever the ISO setting, within a certain range, such as ISO 100 to 1600 or 3200) an underexposure resulted in more noise than the same exposure used at a higher ISO.
One of the great attractions of my first Nikon DX camera, the D7000, was the freedom from this concern about choosing the best ISO for the lowest noise. I could shoot in manual mode and spend more time choosing an appropriate aperture and shutter speed for the circumstances, with less concern about under or overexposure.
Unfortunately, The D7100 seems to have gone backwards in this regard. It's less of a true ISO-less camera than the D7000 was.
For example, if one underexposes 4 stops at ISO 100, with the D7000, instead of using the same exposure at ISO 1600, one looses only about 1/4th of a stop of DR, which is not significant and is worth the benefit of being certain of retaining full highlight detail in the brightest areas.
If one underexposes 4 stops with the D7100 at base ISO, instead of using ISO 1600, one loses a whole stop of DR, which is significant. However, to be fair, most of that loss occurs between ISO 100 and 200, about 2/3rds of it.
If one wishes to use the D7100 as an ISO-less camera, then it would be advisable to use ISO 200 as the base ISO.
Now, according to DXOMark's test results, the D7200 has returned to the status of being a true ISO-less camera. If one underexposes 4 stops at ISO 100 instead of using the same exposure at ISO 1600, one loses a very insignificant DR of only 0.14 EV.
I sure hope that DXO's figures are correct. It makes sense to me that Nikon would have been aware of the deficiencies of the D7100 with respect to banding and a flattening of the linear DR graph between ISO 100 and 200. Is it not reasonable to expect that Nikon would at the very least fix such problems in their next upgrade, the D7200, especially considering that the much earlier D7000 didn't have such problems?