Don't want to be nitpicking and let the rest pass without comment but I am interessted in a source for this quote: "The recommended brightness for photography is 80 cd/m2".
The recommended brightness is that which matches a print based on how you view that print. Mark's correct about the "my prints are too bright" issue being to bright a display, too bright if you take the viewing conditions into account. But what are those conditions and can you control them? On my GTI booth, I have a digital dimmer. Its currently set to 50% with my NEC SpectraView at 150cd/m2. I can raise or lower each within reason. I can move my Solux task lamp closer to or farther away from this booth (with the Fluorescent off of course, I often use one or the other). So anyone who suggests there's one right setting needs to define
both the display and the booth conditions. Otherwise its a lot like one had clapping.
As for contrast ratio, the values above are correct since all you need to do is some simple division. The question becomes, do you have control over both the black and white target values of the display? No problem with better CRTs. And a few LCD's with better panels and software control allow this. This adds another value into the mix so now not only do you try to get cd/m2 for the backlight set to match the booth, you've got the black level too. When the planets all align, you might get all three values to be something someone says is "
correct" but its usually trial and error (if at 120 - 0.3 = 400:1, which is STILL TOO HIGH), the viewing booth might be such that the soft proof looks too high or low.
In the case of my NEC, I simply tell the software what contrast ratio to hit as well as the luminance of white and off it goes. It doesn't always hit the value exactly since there's a mathematical compromise plus I have to view the prints in the booth, adjust that and/or the display target values again.
Driving displays lower does let them last longer.
Oh and by the way, a bigger gamut display isn't always better. In some cases, depending on the work you do, its a definitive negative. The article kind of makes it sound that an Adobe RGB like display is preferable. Not in many cases where you are working with very subtle color images that fall within sRGB gamut.