If you have a NEC LCD you probably want to use a monitor puck that is compatible with NEC's Spectraview II calibration program, such as the Eye One 2. Spectraview has the ability to reach low screen brightnesses by partially dimming the LCD backlight, which avoids compressing the available dynamic range which third party calibration packages would probably do.
Have nothing to compare it too, but I am beyond thrilled with the printer profiles I've been getting from Spyder3 Print. Whatever else, you're on the right track with printer profiling. Just calibrating my screen some time ago was such a revelation that I can not now believe I delayed so long in going on to printer profiles.