Screen flash?
Yeah, I don't know
where I came up with that one :) ... The term I was looking for was "color wash," not "screen flash" ...
My understanding is that this is a problem common to S-PVA screens. When looked at straight on, the way you would normally do with an LCD, the center of the image is much darker than the sides, meaning you lose a lot of detail in darker images. If I open up a dark window and then move it around I can see the image becoming brighter/clearer as it gets closer to the edge of the screen.
If you look at the monitor from the side, the image is even, but who wants to spend all their time looking at their monitor from the side?
Also, gray/darker images can have a kind of "glittery" reflective look to them which proves distracting.
Several posters at the hardforum describe the problem with this monitor/screen here
http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=960883&page=1&pp=20
EDIT: Yikes. I just noticed that on gray colored web pages, I am also getting an effect that I would describe as "screen flash." I'm going to post about it in the hardware forum, since I seem to be drifting away from the topic of gaming ..