Although it's maybe a little unrealistic to expect "perfection" at this price point, I pretty much agree with your sentiments. Dell are massively overcharging the UK for this screen compared to much of the rest of the world (which pays under £300 for the same screen), so the least they can do is give us some better quality control for that extra money! I don't think it's too much to ask that, when you pay almost £450 for a screen, you at least get no dead pixels and no (major) uniformity issues. Major in my books means something you can notice during normal computer use without actually having to go looking for it.
I was checking a thread about the newer Apple 24" displays though (the ones which use LED backlighting) and noticed they still suffer from things like green and pink tint uniformity issues, so it seems like it's perhaps something related to the actual panels LG makes rather than the lighting on the screens. I'm guessing part of the problem is the vast majority of LG's panel production is for TV's, and the green pink uniformity issues don't really present the same issues for TV usage, but are very easy to notice in computer usage because a lot of the time we're looking at things like plain white backgrounds on webpages etc.
Anyway, I have another U2410 coming tomorrow, so I guess I'll be finding out if it is too much to ask pretty soon. Fingers and toes and everything else crossed. These screens are really good if you can avoid one with the uniformity issues.
Suffice to say pretty much nothing about this screen, except the warehouse staff and the courier, involves the UK. If you want to rationalize the irrational, by giving reasons for why it's ok to charge the UK almost double what most other regions of the world pay ,then that might explain why Dell can get away with it 
Although Dell's US list price is $599 they've already offered the screen with a 20% off in the US (which was the equivalent of £288 at the time of the offer) and will do so again I'm sure. 
