I would say a lot of this depends on the goals for each page.
Think of your page title and meta description as an adwords ad for that particular page. If you were to put up an ad to get people to come to that page, what would the headline and ad copy be?
Would that headline and ad copy properly sell the click? Does the page deliver on the promise sold in the ad? (In other words, will they see one headline and come to a page whose copy is totally different, or does the headline and copy lead right into the page?)
Depending on how strong your brand is, you may want to include the brand name within the body copy. People like what they know and if you've already invested in brand equity, then get that to pay off for you in terms of more clicks.
Titles and Metas are more of an art form as you're balancing how well the title helps direct ranking (focused keywords) with how well the title sells the click (persuasive headlines and branding copy).
As with most things - you'll want to do some testing and see which works best both for your site and your search queries.