Torrance, CA
Robin your commitment to improvement is really something else. I salute you.
I'm a big dark mode fan, I use it everywhere I can. I have to admit, I'm not over the moon about the Pinside version so far, it's not very "dark". It's more like Grey Mode. By which I mean the contrast for everything is lower than the light version, which for me at least adds to eye strain instead of helping.
It's much easier for me to read my own words as I'm typing in this edit box right now than it is to read the thread itself, because this text box is actually full #000000 in the background.
At Ars we go full black, but that's a tradition that goes back to the 90s. Some other sites like Destruction go full black for their dark mode too, but you don't have to go that extreme. There's also a lot of interesting color ranges from other services, like Slack, Discord, or Twitter that shoot for adding more blue which helps with the contrast against white without necessarily going super dark. Discord is actually lighter than Pinside but I still find it easier to read because the cooler blue-grey contrasts the white better than Pinside's darker-but-more-neutral background.
I made a reference image to show what I'm talking about. Maybe it helps, maybe you're happy with what you have now, but just my personal feedback as an avid dark mode user, both day and night, that more contrast helps me with reading. 
