Regarding the rest: Dr. Gonzo's transfer is pretty good, but (and I can't see from where) there is halo-ing around edges. This to me makes for a noisy and unpleasant picture.
You should NOT have to adjust your brightness and contrast for every movie you watch. My TV is well calibrated, to alter that in order to suit a specific movie indicates a failing in the transfer (somewhere between the original negative and the final DVD). I'm not saying that the DVD transfer may not be a perfect duplicate of the laserdisc, the laserdisc might as well be at fault.
I don't argue the softness of Farsight's movie, but it does lack noise and artifacts as a trade-off. Also it actually has whites that are white, and blacks that are black without having to touch my tv.
Sure some whites are washed out, but on the whole it seems closer to the white/black levels as, oh say, the XO project.