When I worked tech support for Nokia monitors in the US, probably a third of my calls were "my eyes really hurt when I use this monitor". I got more appreciation from explaining to people how to change their video drivers from 60Hz to 72Hz or better than for anything else, by far.
Your argument that "60Hz is far fast enough for most people not to notice" has no basis in reality. Just because your eyes are too slow to notice the flicker doesn't mean that you are the norm.
Brightness plays a big issue as well, so make sure you're not staring a stuff that's too dim for too long.
Actually, you've got that backwards. If you want to reduce perception of flicker, your background lighting should be as bright as possible in comparison to the relatively dim monitor. The flood of additional light will make the relatively low flicker of the monitor less perceptible.