The part people miss is that museums control the entire viewing environment, not just the light on the piece. Your eyes adapt to the dark room first, so the artwork reads brighter and deeper than it actually is. Try dimming the room around your monitors way down and boosting your piece's contrast a touch, that gap between dark wall and lit screen does more than any calibration tool.

Man that hits close to home... I fought with 63/37 for years until a buddy looked at my work under his scope and pointed out I was using way too thick a wire for fine pitch stuff. Swapped to 0.020 with a higher flux core and suddenly my joints started flowing flat instead of balling up. Also had to drop my iron temp about 30 degrees because I was burning off the flux before it could do its job. It's wild how one look through a magnifier can wreck your whole confidence in a setup you thought was perfect.

Wait, they actually waived it AND threw in late checkout? That's wild. I called a place in Vegas once about the same thing and the guy just kept saying "it's mandatory, sorry" like a broken robot. Ended up paying like $40 for a pool I never even used. Maybe it depends on who picks up the phone or how slow their Tuesday is, but you basically hit the jackpot there.

That drop would have me second guessing every click too, honestly. I've got a cheap one from years ago that's been knocked around more times than I can count, and I still use it for stuff like stem bolts and derailleurs where a little off probably won't kill me. But for bottom bracket stuff, man, I get why you're nervous. I've never paid to have one recalibrated either, it really does cost almost as much as just buying a new one. My cheap solution is to just torque to spec, then back it off and click it again a couple times to see if it feels consistent, that gives me a little peace of mind at least. If the click feels mushy or way different, then I'll bite the bullet, but until then we're just trusting it and hoping, lol.

Heard a trick about putting a level on the floor first to check for dips before building anything big lol.