BB: I read a few tips abotu the high contrast ratio on lcds...

First they say to turn it down to about 10%

Then they also recommend seeing if the monitor also has a gamme setting for r/g/b, and then turning THOSE also down to about 50%  as well. Rhis will get th emonitor down to a more traditional level, it will extend the life of the monitor, and also it'll reduce eye fatigue as well.

I find my lcd MUCH easier to see them my old crt next to it, bu tif I leave it at it's default settings, I need sunglasses.. LOL!

Here's the quote from the tech about it:

"Another thing I look for in a monitor is capability of low brightness. For a programmer, too-high brightness is a big problem. Many LCD monitor's are ridiculously bright and cannot go down to 100cd/m2 (at 100cd/m2, also called "print-level" a white screen is about as bright as holding a paper page in a well-lit room). Anything more than that is quite straining for the eyes, especially at night. Turning the brightness to 0, and the contrast to about 25, I get the "paper effect" with this monitor, although blacks are not as deep as I would like. It does better than most monitors, but not nearly as good as my older Sony 19" SDM-HX93 LCD which had an amazing backlight adjustment.

UPDATE: I discovered a way to lower the brightness in addition to the brightness/contrast controls. Go to "Color setting" in the menu, and turn down all 3 RGB colors; I set Red to 70, Green to 70 and Blue to 62. This lowers the brightness considerably, so I do not have to reduce the contrast too much to achieve the low brightness setting I am after for easy-on-the-eyes late night coding sessions.
You can take the RGB colors all the way to 0 resulting in a black screen; it's an awesome brightness adjustability!
This trick may work on other monitors too, please comment if you have the chance to try it on Samsung, LG, Viewsonic, or other monitors. "

Way too many people take way too many things way too seriously.