Well, my monitor went all fuzzy so I had to ditch it.  Thankfully someone had just given me one...so I just swapped out the old one.  While i was at it, I tried another monitor I had laying around.  I remembered it was way too dark but kept it just in case (pulled it out of the dumpster).  I was about to toss it but just on a lark I opened it up to see if there were any trim pots inside that might let me adjust the brightness...and there was one :)

I was going to do the same thing with my old fuzzy monitor (look for a master focus) but I ran into a little snag.  It's one of those made with a hidden fastener along the top.  After prying and prying, wrecking the top...I STILL couldn't remove the top.  No hidden screws or anything, just some kind of fucked up fastener that I couldn't see.  Finally just gave up and gave it a HARD toss into the dumpster. I really think that sort of thing needs to be a criminal offense...if the device is EVER meant to be serviced AT ALL...it must have an OBVIOUS and relatively easy way to open it.

Well, at least I've got my monitor back up to a good resolution without it getting terribly blurry.