Yes. I find it really difficult and uncomfortable to read bright text on dark backgrounds. It honestly hurts my eyes. And afterwards my eyes have leftover streaks of bright after the text lines. Can't stand it, and I will go to lengths to turns such pages into "bright mode".
I have a thinkpad I rigged with slackware and a custom WM and whatnot, custom browser, etc. exclusively in dark colors with brighter text. But instead of white I opt for a lighter grey. If I need context highlighting I use variations of red, orange, and blue. It's the perfect setting for me since I also had that "retina burn" effect from white-on-black. On my windows machines I use a redshift app called Flux. Not great for watching videos since the colors are off, but for general browsing and working it's the only setting I can stand with light backgrounds.
Definitely seems to be a preference thing I guess. I'm like you, I find it more uncomfortable reading bright text on dark backgrounds that I often avoid sites that have that color scheme, if there is no "bright mode" available.
