That example is pretty good, but I'd argue that the trade-off there is that it's more blurry and doesn't jump out at me, making me work harder in other ways to read it.

On the other hand, I just tried turning on the "smooth edges of screen fonts" again, and I'm experiencing the opposite of you. I much prefer the antialiasing on the larger fonts (as that's where it's showing up most for me).

*edit*

Here's a page showing a good example of why antialiasing is good. Notice the overlapping circles.
...
What is the deal with you anti-antialiasing freaks? Apparently, you'd also like a chair without curves and a mouse shaped like a cube

Thanks for the link, but I know what anti-aliasing is, I just said I didn't like it on fonts. You're making this into a larger issue. I never said anything about images and such. Reading text is very different.


ps- I just want to add that I rarely get fonts that look like the first example in your picture:

What font is that, anyway?