MLU is certainly necessary for certain lenses, but for vibration supression - at least on the range of focal lengths that I use (28 to 300) - I am doing fine without it with my F80. I was quite concerned about this when I got my F80, but found no difference in image quality between my shots with my F2 using MLU, and my F80 without MLU, except at the well-known window around 1/15th sec. Yes, it can be a bit of a pain avoiding that window, but that's made up by not having to deal with MLU.
Apparently, the mirror and shutter on the F80, F100, D100, etc. are very well damped. The shutter release sound is certainly very muted compared to the F2.