However, since then I acknowledge there is an instance where it does make sense.. any text on black. In OS X, at least, the default rendering of type on a black background bleeds horribly, so I've swallowed my pride and started to use it in situations where it makes sense. It's particularly noticeable with Helvetica, I've found.

It depends on monitor's gamma!

My monitor with generic color profile exhibits the opposite: black-on-white is bleeding red badly, but white-on-black looks fine.

The issue is (mostly) fixable by using appropriate monitor color profile.

I think subpixel hinting looks terrible. I think letterforms are really interesting and beautiful and I actually want to see them when I use the web.

That said, I do agree that web sites shouldn't override the browser settings for body text. But turning off hinting of titles is probably reasonable.

Campaigns like the OP that raise awareness are very much needed, there's no downside to them.

Those designers believe that anti-aliased fonts look better and no tirade will convince them. It’s just ineffective to try and convince them that anti-aliased fonts should not be used. It’s the wrong argument.

Here is what the argument should be: Most users of the web (nearly everyone not using XP and everyone using Internet Explorer 7 and XP) have anti-aliasing turned on by default. There is no need to worry about them. Additionally, the property designers are using to turn anti-aliasing on doesn’t even work for many browsers. It’s mostly targeting users of Chrome or Safari and XP. That’s a really small subset of users and the benefit of enabling anti-aliasing for them is doubtful. Most other websites won’t be anti-aliased for them, the one that is will likely stick out and somehow look “wrong” to them – not because anti-aliasing is objectively worse but because they are just not used to it.

Who will be very angry is everyone who explicitly disabled anti-aliasing. That’s a small minority, for sure, but I don’t see how the benefits are worth that tradeoff in any way.

    -webkit-text-stroke: 1px transparent;

Unsubstantiated claim is unsubstantiated. I, for one, find that I can read more quickly with OSX-style text rendering, and efficiency matters to me.

As to the "high contrast movement" OP, I find the lower contrast easier on my eyes. And I have friends who have to wear sunglasses to read books / computer screens because of the high contrast. It's a horse apiece.

External monitors, at least, have contrast controls as well as brightness (I wonder why laptops don't).