There’s plenty of research about the fatigue and damage caused by displays, with brightness being a factor. Most displays I’ve used, at the lowest brightness, will still be fatiguing. The human eye has never been exposed to this much direct light at close quarters, lots of it being in the blue+ parts of the spectrum.
Needing light themes to offset display reflections seems like a very good case of form over function. Nano-texture Apple displays largely address that, but then they’re much more expensive. The idiocy of fashion-driven design…
Aside from the LG Ultrafine, I’ve never owned an external monitor with auto-brightness.
Example meta reviews:
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s12886-024-03721-1