Color Discrepancy?

Muir Beach; the first photo edited on the new monitor.

After spending hours futzing with many a color chart, I finally have my new monitor roughly dialed in. I scrounged a color profile from the wonderful folks at tftcentral, did some tweaking on the monitor, and I'm pretty happy with how things look on it. However, when I compare the same chart or photo on the new monitor to the old monitor, things look very different.

For instance, the charts look a lot more subtle on the old monitor. Not a big problem for me as such, but I think a lot of the colors look better on the old monitor. They're much deeper, and maybe that is a factor of the monitor just not being as bright, but it bothers me.

The most worrisome part of putting photos on the web - that I hadn't thought of before now - is the question, "How do you ensure that whoever is viewing your work is viewing it as it should be?" That is to say, what if they're using my mom's monitor, where the contrast and brightness are cranked as high as can be so she can read stuff? I can't help but think that there is no solution, and you just have to hope and trust that the people that care have taken the care themselves to ensure they can see things properly.

In a way, I'm glad I've kept an uncalibrated shitty monitor around. If I can make a photo look good on both displays, I'll be happy as I have covered all bases. That won't stop me from buying a colorimeter, but that's another $150 for a spyder3 or eye-one, and another three hours or so to satisfy my compulsive comparison-shopping. If anyone has a recommendation or review for either product, or just a tip in general, leave it in the comments.