Possible to swap display for a lower native resolution?

I want to switch to a Macbook Pro and get rid of my Thinkpad, but the 1440x900 native resolution makes everything too small for me to be comfortable using. I've already tried all the possible OS and software settings, to no avail. Is it possible to mod a MBP and swap out the screen it comes with and replace it with a screen at a lower native resolution, like 1280x800? I've seen threads on swapping to a higher resolution, but nothing on a lower resolution.

 

Lowered resolution

I tried that, but the screen was awfully blurry since it's at a non-native resolution. I also tried all the possible software settings -- adjusting font sizes in the operating system, adjusting the browser font sizes, playing with the resolution scaling settings from the command line, etc. For me, and a lot of other people, to use a computer comfortably everything on the screen has to be big, but still sharp.

This thread talks about a mod to increase the resolution, so I figure someone has to know how to mod it to decrease it: http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=207751&highlight=replace+lcd

And on this thread (older, from 2006), someone identifies the exact Samsung screen used, and when you click through to the place that sells them, there's a 15.4" 1280x800 screen. http://forums.macrumors.com/archive/index.php/t-230455.html So I wonder if it's possible to just buy the alternate screen and replace it.

 

I tried all the software settings possible, such as increasing the icon size, increasing font sizes in the browser and in different apps, and messing with the undocumented resolution independence feature that's accessible from the command line. The high resolution, combined with the Mac-style anti-aliased font rendering (as opposed to Windows uglier but easier to read pixel rendering), just make everything too hard to see. I ended up ordering a widescreen ThinkPad at 1280x800 for my next laptop, but hope that Apple will come out with resolution independence in the next year or so. That will solve all the problems of everything being too small, and then I can replace it with a MBP. I will probably only be able to use a Mac for my desktop until then.