Is meeting phone etiquette changing?

I was in management several years ago and attended more meetings than I care to remember. At that time it was expected that each member would silence or turn off and pocket their cell phone before the meeting. If your phone happened to ring during a meeting it was frowned upon. Yesterday I attended a meeting with some relative VIPs. To my surprise, this one-hour meeting was punctuated by cell rings and tones of texts received. Each time a phone went off, it was promptly checked and often the recipient would return a text. To me, it seemed rude and self-serving. But to the other members this seemed acceptable and, in fact, there seemed to be a sense of "he who received the most calls must be the most important". Has meeting etiquette changed that much?