Pre Post Metering

FYI...arm a track, record a track, play back recording...and the meters may appear to behave oddly. If so, check to see if the track is still armed. If its still armed, the meter is reading the signal off the still hot mike, not the track you are playing back. Also, if the track meter stops displaying signal levels at any time, disarm the track for recording, then rearm it, in many cases this restores proper display of incoming signals for me.

John
How do you know what your levels are if you have it set to pre fader?

What levels? The ones you think are not clipping? How do you know what any levels are (exclude summing busses) without going through each channel and plugin one by one?
In post fader I can run the audio through an eq and gun everything the hit it with a compressor and overdrive the in and the out distorting the b'jesus out of it, then pull my channel fader way, way, way, way back to about -48db and it shows me a nice un-clipped meter... HMM where is that distortion coming from? The meter in that case is only telling me I am send an ultra clipped signal to a summing buss at a low level.
 
Not that the pre fader setting will show you any more info or give you any clues either.
 
As with all metering and mixing;
You must be careful when applying plugins and watch for clipping at that stage and adjust inputs of the plugins accordingly.
 
Signal chain by default is Audio > Pro Channel > Plugins > fader.
 
So pre or post metering is really a matter of choice. Do you want to see the recorded signal level or not?
TO ANSWER GUYPICKS QUESTION:
I prefer pre fader metering. I too come from the old school.
It is more like a real console and tape machine. I grew up with 2" tape and stripped SMPTE tracks for automation. Every console I have ever worked on from Neve's to SSL's would show me how hot the signal coming off the tape was.
 
It seems odd if I have a fader pulled down and lose the visual reference of whether there is audio recorded on it or not.
 
Just my 2 cents.