With that scenario, you're dealing with physiological limitations, because if you have a bright region next to a dark night region, your eyes cannot perceive detail in the dark region. You'll also be vulnerable to the optical illusion effects of perception (e.g., see http://www.cns.nyu.edu/~david/courses/perception/lecturenote... and other examples in http://www.cns.nyu.edu/~david/courses/perception/lecturenote...), so "look fine" is going to be rather hard to define, much less guarantee.

But this discussion was really about interfaces, potential interest in monochromatic interfaces, and the issues of low-contrast interfaces.

This article from the Nielsen/Norman group clearly describes the usability problems with the currently trendy low-contrast interfaces. https://www.nngroup.com/articles/low-contrast/