You’ve lost that loving feeling, indeed!
 
This is what happens when I power up my MacBook now. And the fadeup isn’t the auto-gain thing catching up, the fadeup really is that slow.
 
Note the eerily organic fadeup - like it’s part of the LCD gone bad or something. Note how quick it is, too - before the normal boot cycle or boot drive detect can have taken place. If it blipped to this full screen all at once I’d understand it better, but the slow, organic fade-up nature of it is unlike anything I’ve seen in my 20+ years of working with Macs (yeah, that long...is that kewl or depressing?)
MacBook now HosedBook