yup crt monitors darken with age..it's a fact.however if things are getting bad and you can't adjust the monitor itself any brighter,try your advanced display properties,most video cards these days and for quite a while have included a tab to adjust things like color and brightness...so you may be able to crank it up further via the software there. i find the adobe gamma loader software that comes with photoshop a godsend btw...i run two monitors and this is the only way i can get them to look close to the same in regards to color and brightness..if you can get the phospher numbers for your monitor[try the manufacturers website!]so much the better...