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.