I would imagine this is something Stern will address fairly soon in a code update. Given that this is the first machine with this "feature", it's not unreasonable to think that there will be refinements and adjustments made as it rolls out, and the ability to dim or turn off (preferably automatically) while playing seems like one of those things they may not have previously thought of during development and should be easy enough to accomplish with a couple of lines of code. Stern always hits a few bogeys initially with every new game, but I think they do a pretty consistently good job of quickly addressing them once they become widely known.

Sure you can unplug stuff, cut wires, cover with tape, spackle the opening in the apron etc., but those are very inelegant solutions and definitely not things I would want to do to my brand-new game that's closing in on $10k!

In defense of the OP being bothered by the brightness, some individuals are quite sensitive to bright sources of light in their peripheral vision and simply cannot ignore it. This may be due to susceptibility to migraines or the presence of any number of eye or other neuro issues, or the individual could simply be a "normal variant" with some minor anatomical quirk that's not pathological but does result in annoying but minor issues such as this.

That being said, this feature seems like a truly substantial upgrade to Stern's platform and I for one am eager to experience it for myself and even a bit excited to see how pinball evolves in response. This could end up being an even more significant an upgrade to the pinball "experience" than the transition from the SS to the DMD era was!

Well then just be grateful you aren't one of the sensitive ones, and perhaps muster up a little empathy for those that are!

The key difference is, the bright flashing lights on the playfield are in the player's central vision and are the focus of his/her attention. Sources of light in the peripheral visual field (even if dimmer than the playfield lights) are a distraction that the brain has to "work around" in order to maintain focus/attention on the playfield; for some people this CAN in fact be an annoyance (or even cause discomfort), and I'd prefer to give these folks the benefit of the doubt rather than ridiculing them as crybabies.