Inserting and incrementing with MAX aggregate

I was wondering if this statement was still supported in 7.0.x versions
of pgSQL. I upgraded from a 6.x version where say:

insert into events (eid,name) values (max(eid)+1,'server down');

works but not in the 7.x variants.

I know that I could use the serial type for that column but in the
interest not having to rewrite the code (or dump, drop and recreate the
tables/data), I wanted to know if there was a more stand way to
incrementing a field automatically that would be fairly portable. Any
help would be appreciated.

Keith Perry
VCSN Inc.
keith(at)vcsn(dot)com
http://vcsn.com