Ultra 2 overly dim at night. NOT functioning as designed.

My Ultra 2 watch becomes unreadably dim at night. This is not just an issue of preference or aesthetic, but of usability.

The product is clearly not acting as designed. The reason I know this is that over the past week I have compared my watch to those of two other people with brand new Ultra 2 watches. Their display is dramatically brighter than mine in a darkened environment.

I also took my watch to two Apple stores in my area, and compared my watch to the display models in a dark environment. Absolutely not the same response.

Steps taken so far:

I have exchanged the watch. No difference. As such, it is either a bad lot in my area, or a quirk of the hardware, software, i-phone combination.

Watch is on 10.0.2

Phone is on iOS 17.0.2

Have reset and unpaired, re-paired the watch.

Have rebooted the phone

Have reset the watch to factory settings and started over.

Brightness is at max

Tried "always on" in both modes, no difference

Tried low power mode, on and off, no difference

Have tried True Tone on and off on the phone, no change

Have tried Night Shift on and off on the phone, no change

Have tried various other settings on the phone in case there was a mirror issue, no change

Have called support. Went through various combination of watch and phone settings, no change

Tried various community recommended hacks, none have worked.

Have had support run Analytics on my watch, no issue found.

Again, it is not possible that this is "as designed" as other watches that I have encountered do not act this way.

I have sent two reports to Apple Support on this issue.