I have only been shooting RAW right now so I guess I shouldn't go too crazy. While I'm out shooting, I see the histogram hitting the right side and I always think my camera got the exposure wrong. Then I read where it can touch the side if it's even across the whole histogram. I think the confusing part is sometimes you get a photo with one hump in the middle and nothing even close to hitting either side. But I take it that this doesn't necessarily mean that it's the most perfectly exposed shot, it just means there's not a lot of extreme light or dark in the shot.
Maybe I just need to shoot as I always did before, and not worry so much about the stupid spikes!
I mean when I look at the shots that barely touch the right side, they're never that far off, but may have few slightly blown areas that don't really wreck the shot.