More hacking. I wrote a patch so that freetype will optionally generate the FIR filter it used during subpixel rendering on-the-fly based on an environment variable. I'll put the patch and packages up shortly.
Here's another shot of the "hello" google search. Look better than the last one? I dunno. It's certainly less fringy to me.
It probably depends on your screen. That's why I made it configurable.