Customizing the display of item metadata in 1.0?

We've been playing with Omeka 1.0, and it looks like a pretty major change has taken place: it's become much more difficult to control the appearance, order etc. of item metadata. I'd like to make sure that I'm understanding what's happening.

According to this tutorial on theme file structure, the file themes/[themename]/items/show.php had all the possible metadata listed separately, so that it could be cut and pasted around at will. Looking at the new show.php, though, we see

<?php echo show_item_metadata(array('show_empty_elements' => false)); ?>

(We opted not to show empty elements in that example.)

The show_item_metadata function is found in application/helpers/ItemFunctions.php, nice and streamlined:

function show_item_metadata(array $options = array(), $item=null)
 {
     if (!$item) {
         $item = get_current_item();
     }
     return __v()->itemMetadataList($item, $options);
 }

So, how do we customize metadata order and display without having to write case-by-case functions for it, and then maintain those through Omeka updates?

Many thanks for your help!
-Vika