What's wrong with that? It can be a gameplay mechanic. People want it to be brighter? They need to create light (torches, lanterns, whatever)Plus it increases the importance of ultravision-giving items.
I recall back in the day having to run EQPlayNice in order to be able to alt-tab out. Wasn't it around Velious release that SOE relaxed their stance on that?
Server and forums completely down right now.
EDIT: Aaand it's back, new patch deployed earlier today also. Update your spell file if you didn't already.