Tommy, the only time it shows you the distance in a straight line is when you do a find, such as when finding a city or restaurant, for example. If you've laid in a route, the distance to the end will be utilizing the streets in the route, so it should be the true travel distance.
I agree with you on the brightness of the screen. It's read-able, but could be better. I had the brightness on my 2720 at 100% during my trip to Memphis and back and there were plenty of times I was wishing it was brighter still. [smiley=nixweiss.gif] I leave it on the automatic brightness setting when it's in one of the cages and that has always been fine. When I've checked it, it's only been at 80% on sunny days in the car/truck, but on the bike, even 100% was not enough.