I too had the Dare and sometimes noticed the the screen from my front pocket
I think because its a smart-phone, they made it with the intentions of of people using it like a crack berry - you know - looking at it every 5 seconds, whereas a regular phone - like my wifes POS razor, will make that annoying beep all night for text or missed calls...sometimes I want to throw it out the window

The green light on the Droid is obvious enough yet subtle - if its on I know I missed something - I had to light up the screen on the Dare to figure that out.