Well, for the last two weeks I've been using some shade of gray (205,205,205) as my Window colour (all backgrounds).  And for the most part, applications have worked just fine, not like my last experience.  Perhaps I need a darker shade, but I'm worried that the reduced contrast will start straining my eyes and negate the benefit of non-white background to begin with.

Of course, I could change the text colours to white, but I really doubt anything would look good then...  Anyways, give it a spin!  Turn down the amount of energy that your display is emitting and see how it feels.