In the case of OCZ, it will make your life monstrously less insufferable if you ensure the drive has the latest firmware revision before installing it in your Mac, as OCZ does not support OS X (they provide a mixed bag of solutions that require a decent level of computer expertise and Linux distributions which are rickety at best). They make great hardware but have deplorable Apple support even after all these years.
You can view the latest firmware for your drive here. The utility requires either Windows or Linux and a working networking connection. It is also recommended you back up your data as the update could wipe it, so naturally it is best to do on a fresh drive. v2.1.5 has been out for a while so it is quite likely you won't need to update. Support forums are available in case you do.
If Lion shipped with the unit, you are in luck. The computer is capable of using both the Lion Recovery Disk Assistant or the Online Lion Recovery process (hold COMMAND+R after you hear the chime. Both will download Lion and install it for you. All new machines have their unique identifiers registered with Apple, so barring a complete logic board swap, they will always have access to Lion without the need to pay for the OS. In fact, your copy of Lion operates entirely outside of the Mac App Store.
Note: Be wary of partitioning tools (like SuperDuper, etc.) as Lion has a Recovery HD (weighing in at 650 MB) installed alongside the OS. This is there to either help with the reinstallation or diagnose and repair your system. It does not house the entire operating system, but rather things like Terminal and Disk Utility. Currently, partitioning tools do not clone this partition and the one's that are including this feature, are still in the experimental stages. Be careful.
Personally, I would verify the drive has the latest firmware revision and then install it in your Mac. Use either the Lion USB stick you created via the Recovery Disk Assistant or the built in Online Recovery and install Lion. That's it.
It seems like the contrast on your display is too low for you. If you can adjust the contrast on your monitor, try increasing it. If you cannot change the contrast (such as the internal laptop displays), fuss around in the color calibration utility (go to System Preferences > Displays > choose the window on the monitor you want to change > Color tab > Calibrate… and follow the instructions). Make sure Mail and iCal are visible behind the calibration window so you can see if your changes are sufficient. I'd suggest using Expert Mode and paying especial attention to the vertical sliders on the left.
To answer your final question regarding resolution, upgrading to a higher-res machine would not help. Apple's machines are usually fairly standardly calibrated from the factory, so a higher resolution would simply make the pixels smaller, not easier to distinguish, and might even make things worse.
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...and, I'm answering my own question. Apparently (this comes as a surprise) the entire iLife '11 DVD is available as an ISO from archive.org (https://archive.org/details/iLife_Install_DVD_Version_11_2Z691-6677-A_Apple_2010). I'm not sure whether that's legal or not -- I would expect archive.org to be careful about clearing copyright before hosting uploaded disk images, but maybe not. If this is considered software piracy then please feel free to delete this answer.