Kobo reader in tow, I swung by Best Buy after work. I held up the Kobo next to the 350 (yep, looks exactly like the one at home), the 950 (yep, looks exactly like the 350 - just larger) and finally the Kindle 3 (yep, still grey).
It would appear that while the Pearl screen does indeed have better contrast (there is no denying the text is darker on Pearl screened readers) it is somewhat discounted by the less white screen. To what degree it's noticeable appears to be a matter of interpretation from what I have gathered here at mobileread (my but there are a few of you who stand by that 50% better! mantra
)but to my eyes it is significant. You know how some people can see 60hz flicker on a CRT and others cannot? Maybe it's akin to that.
Kobo might be my reader.
I suppose at a minimum I have 28 more days to live with it and see if I can become accustomed to it's comparatively limited featureset. Maybe within that timeframe someone will come up with a way to load user fonts (a-la the Sony lineup) as I think at the moment that is its greatest display issue.
Thanks everyone for your input.