In the not too distant past,CRT televisions sold in the big stores purposely kept the contrast (white level) maxed out to draw customers in. "Brightness sells" was their mindset.Forget picture quality.

A good general rule of thumb is to set contrast at midpoint,then make the necessary adjustments. Test patterns are available to actually dial this in,along with brightness (black level). One of them is the Pluge pattern.Another is the needle pulse.As Andy mentioned,once you get used to the "darker"picture and dial in the color,tint adjustments,you'll never want to go back to torch mode.

Regarding the caps, yes, for the most part that is true. I don't think you'll find many paper caps in that set at all-they had mostly switched to orange drops or similiar. Wholesale replacement of the electrolytics isn't mandatory on these, but sooner or later it will need it so it just as well be sooner.