Gamma, Color Saturation, Lightness, Darkness, Thoughts? Opinions?

I have been a CRT User for a long, long time. I recently purchased a new Laptop from HP, and it has a wide format. 15" cross corner, 13" Horizontal and 8.25" Vertical. The lcd does 1280x800, that coupled with a mobile radeon chipset, it has more adjustments than I care to deal with. I mean this LCD is Bright, without being tinkered with, and puts my CRT Next to it, to Shame. The CRT is like a washed out color palette. My general query is this what is the common consensus, for Gamma Setting, Color Depth / Saturation, and Brightness Darkness. I mean how are we to know a skins true, Hue, Balance and whatnot? BoXXi just created a lovely skin StaXX, but I had to totally reset my Gamma to baseline as it was way dark for me. I understand to each his/ her own and all that, but I would like to get an idea of what an artist actually intends a skin to look like, before I start Jacking with the Settings.
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