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You're certainly right that consciousness has been debated since the dawn of philosophy. My point about the dangers speaking in terms of the brain "doing X" rather than the person is that its essentially religion. If the brain thinks for us, then who thinks for the brain? Does the brain have a smaller brain? And what about that one? As soon as we admit this type of language, we lose control of our own destiny. We are controlled by it.
It used to be "the soul". Then it was "the mind" during the Enlightenment. Now its "the brain". Its all the same, no matter what word is used to describe it. Its dualism, and it robs us of our humanity (by saying that we lack control over our own psyche), while obscuring complex and important problems. The mind is an emergent property of the body, and they are one, not two.