What's actually different between a photon of a given frequency that enters my eye after reflecting off a surface and a photon of the same frequency that enters my eye after being emitted from a display?
> You sound like a person who uses a terminal with a black bg and neon green text and claim that as superior. Maybe to you but surely not for the majority
BTW, in the CRT days green on black was actually objectively superior if you were using small fonts on most displays. That was because most displays would have slight misalignment of the red, green, and blue, especially near the edges, leading to color fringing around white things. For small text, the fringing could make text blurry and hard to read.
Pure green on black had no red or blue, so no fringing. Red on black or blue on black would have worked too, but most people find those much harder to read than green on black.