Concern about backlight bleeding is over dramatized. Many LCD's have some level of Backlight bleeding. Mine has no bleeding and zero dead pixels.
On the NEC, man does that screen look great! You put 50 monitors on display, that screen will jump out at you. Colors come alive. The downside, it's very reflective. I checked one out locally. It's hard not to focus on the reflections. Overhead lights, everything behind me, pretty much the whole freakin store was visible. Train your eyes back to the image and it looks beautiful.
The base is the best I've seen, very smooth adjustments. It glides to where you want it and stays put. Freakin awesome everything, except for the glare. If you can find one locally, check it out. It's a sweet monitor, but you have to weigh the glare factor.
Funny, you're exactly where I was two months ago...