>I'm using a flat panel display if that makes a difference, but the
>system font didn't look this lousy on the flat panel display in the
>store.
It does make a difference, but probably not as big a difference as knocking
smoothing down to 8 points and larger, rather than 9, or otherwise playing with
it. The last iTunes upgrade showed this to be true, as its default preferences
were for a smaller point size than most people had set smoothing for.

I'm reading this in OS 9 on a 800 x 600 'flat panel' and I know there were some
system fonts designed particularly for this screen resolution, as LCDs can't
fudge the results like a CRT.