I went back and looked at Jordan King's preview video to make sure that my memory wasn't playing tricks on me.  Sure enough, the colors and lighting look much more subdued and the night environment is not nearly as dark in his video.  The runways are also not blown out and "glowy".  He was running v 0.1.15713.0 and the current EA version is 1.0.16311.0.  I wonder if something got "broken" before the general release?

...or "improved." 

I also noticed the credits screen had changed. While the earlier build had a thanks/acknowledgment section that included A2A, Aerosoft, Carenado, and Orbx, the current version has lengthier credits for A2A and Orbx, but no mention of Aerosoft or Carenado. OTOH, there are no credits for "Alan Smithee." 

Here's something else interesting - I just got done flying a couple of missions and the colors/exposure are completely different than in free flight.  The colors are much more subdued (even flat)... but much more to my taste.  It's almost as if the missions are using different shaders.  Now I understand why some people were actually complaining that the rendering was too "dark".  For whatever reason, the performance is not quite as good in the missions I've tried (around 20 fps); but that could be due to my old 2GB GTX770.