I've flown a Garmin 296, EKP-IV and Lowrance 2000c in similar conditions. I decided on the 2000c because it was the easiest to read, hands down. The EKP-IV has a fantastic display, but it's font sizes are too small for me to read comfortably. The Garmin simply washed out and disappeared in the sun (it was mounted beside the EKP-IV). My 2000c is not quite as bright as my Dynon EFIS with SuperBright glass, and since I don't have terrain I find that I run it at max brightness during bright sunlight and turn it down a bit in overcast. In the last few minutes of legal daylight I have to turn it pretty much down to minimum.
For night flight the "night" mode seems to work, but we have to remember the limitations of the technology. The 2000c uses cold-cathode flourescent backlighting (which is why it's hard on batteries), while the majority of other GPS units are using LED backlighting. The LED's give a wider range of dimming. Unfortunately they also generally give less light at max brightness. Lowrance has done a good job in getting the unit to go from bright to dim without any flickering at low light levels as seen with some cold cathode flourescents.
I would support many of the suggestions made above with respect to form factor. Keep the box the same size, but fill the top half of it with glass instead of leaving so much of it as surrounding plastic bezel. I know XM weather would be a great feature but since I can't get it reliably here in Canada it's not a feature discriminator for me.
As for customer service, Lowrance Canada is about as dumb as a post. Unless you get the right person, and then they beat the living daylights out of everybody I've talked to at Lowrance in the USA. I guess it's a bit of a **** shoot - service is, after all, a personal thing.
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