JAMF, the screen material is a light tan canvas drop cloth. Spending time calibrating against THAT would drive you insane.
The color is actually very good "in real life". The guy doing the driving in those pics is as fussy a color whore as you'll find (he one tore down a multi-k $ DSLR to tear out the infrared filter that was screwing up his astral photography shots) and he said it was "pretty good".
"Pretty good" to him is "jam packed full of glittering awesomeness" to the rest of us with un-calibrated Mk-I eyeballs.
The control problems have to do with either bad pots, bad wiring, a bad interface controller or some of all three. I haven't taken the time to chase it down. I would have worked on that today, but it's 94 degrees outside right now and the shop has become the horror movie equivalent to a geek's EZ-Bake Oven.
g.