Am I the only person who couldn't tell the difference in that horizontal gradient example?
The point I'm making is this: it was good enough in ~1995. Frankly, it was awesome back then! But is it really still good enough in 2012?
Of course much of the media we consume has quantized colour, streamed videos especially don't really stand up to any kind of close examination using today's displays, never mind futuristic ones. Banding from limited gamut is not the big problem here, there are much bigger elephants.
background-image: linear-gradient(to left, #484848, #494949); background-image: -moz-linear-gradient(right, #484848, #494949); background-image: -webkit-linear-gradient(right, #484848, #494949);