The OP mentions his 76csx having this screen also...do our Rino 530Hcx's have this type of screen? I am continually told that this model is nothing but a 60csx (or maybe even 76csx?) with a radio....
AFAIK, ALL Garmins use ONLY Transreflective displays, so George's post was news to me. ...I also strongly suspect your Rino is based on an eTrex, not the 60/76 family. Easy to check, go to the website and compare the display size and pixel H&W: Rino/eTrex/60/76.
A 76csx (latest model) looks like this:
Display resolution, WxH: 160 x 240 pixels
Display type: 256 color transflective TFT
The Rino 530hcx specifies this:
Display resolution, WxH: 176 x 220 pixels
Display type: 256 level color TFT
I think that the Colorado simply specifies "Transflective TFT" with obviously more pixels involved yet.
My comments in regards to the Rino530Hcx being very similiar in many ways to the 60Csx (I put a question mark behind the 76 version) came from my conversation with somebody in customer service at Garmin. This is one of the reasons that I ended up going with the 530hcx; as what are you truly losing (latest technology-wise; save what the new Colorado brings to the table) with so many more features to boot?
The crux of this matter seems to be the OP's last assertion (see previous post) that has remained unchallenged:
"...As far as being ignorant about the topic, I have spent the past 27 years working with lasers and electro-optical systems including high resolution space based CCD imaging systems. I know a bit about this stuff but never claim to be an expert. Some differences are quantitative, others are qualitative. Screen brightness is qualitative. I would like to see ALL the detail on the screen. It takes brightness and contrast to do this...."
If the average human eye just isn't picking the details up in comparison to other displays already out there....then the OP's observation seems to be a valid one at this time.