OK, rob and company, I think I have a solution to the dimmer issue (and I posted it here so that others could comment on it)

If I set the value to, say, "10%", it should START (at power-on) at 100% and wind its way down to 10% over, say, 5 seconds. If at any point in that time I touch a button, it immediately stops dimming at the present level, and allows me to tinker with the menus. When I'm done and out of the menus, if the "set" dimmer level is not equal to the "current" dimmer level, then it fades again in the appropriate direction.

Pros:

o Coolness factor. You turn on the headlights, and the dashboard just slowly fades down to the appropriate level
o Allows a user with a misconfigured dimmer level to (if they act quickly) bail on the dim and set the dimmer level to what they want. Likewise, if the "lights-on" dim is set wrong, as soon as they turn on the lights they have the opportunity to make sure that the end-level of the dimmer will be visible.

Cons:

o Probably a bitch to code.
o Involves always starting at 100%, which for some users may not be desirable every time (of course, the setting could be disabled via emplode as a conscious decision,... someone who DOES that will already know what their dimmer settings are set at and be explicitly saying "I like my dimmer settings as they are, thank you").

Thoughts from the peanut gallery?

D