I think you're talking total and utter rubbish to be honest. A CCFL backlight is likely to give migraine, as it flickers. LED backlights don't flicker, so won't give migraine.
I suspect you've got the backlight much brighter on the new laptop compared to what was possible on your old one.
You'll have fun getting a Dell machine with a CCFL backlight now too, most if not all are LED backlit.
But, again, I think you're just running the backlight too bright which is giving you migraines.
I suffer migraine, and use CCFL and LED backlit LCDs, the only ones that cause eye strain are LEDs turned up too bright.
Thank you for telling me that how I feel after using a computer is 'rubbish'. You aren't me and know nothing about how a screen effects my eyes, so stop sounding foolish ok?
I have owned THREE non-LED apple products and regularly put in 8+ hours on the computers without a single problem with eyestrain/headaches. Last month I purchased a new uMBP 15" with the identical resolution to my current 15" aluMBP, that is to say 1440x900. The only difference in the screen between the two is that the new unit uses the LED backlighting. (both are matte BTW). Within one hour of using the new unit I was already having problems looking at the screen with the eye strain and headaches. I gave the unit a fair shake down for about 3 days, but never could get 'used' to it or get the color setting to a point that it didn't feel like a knife was going through my eyes into my brain.
Im a photoshop and web design professional, so I went through all the brightness and color calibrations before sitting down to use the computers.
I'm not sure what kind of headaches you suffer, but some people have different headaches then you do.
My symptoms are very real, don't dismiss me because you don't want me to say anything bad about LED. There are NUMEROUS threads on this site and many other sites about this problem. I'm not here blaming anyone, I understand the vast majority of the population don't have this problem and so it probably isn't important to apple, and I don't blame them in the least. I'm just looking for a solution so that I can stay with Apple as I've been an apple user from the start but I cant keep nursing my poor AluMBPs along.
As for turning the resolution down, that is a good thought, but my work is mainly in graphics and the non-native resoltuion has alot of blurring that makes my kind of work impossible to do. I need cripness which every mac thankfully has.
Thank you to everyone who has given me constructive advice it has been very helpful. I've come to the conclusion that this probably isn't possible because the uMBP is wired to give power to an LED backlit screen and the power draw of the CCFL is probably much different. I will keep hunting for some kind of solution, unfortunatly an external monitor isnt completly in the cards as I use my MBP on the road frequently.
I want to stick with apple instead of moving to dell or even worse