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Great article but it's author makes common mistake of people not knowing how CRTs actually worked: specifically Brightness and Contrast controls. In CRTs Brightness potentiometer controlled gain of luma amplifier which affected top level of brightness but kept black level intact effectively modifying picture's contrast. Contrast potentiometer controlled voltage offset of the luma amplifier which means it shifted black level so setting "Contrast" control higher actually decreased picture's contrast but increased overall picture's brightness.

Summing up: Brightness and Contrast controls behave completely different in CRTs and LCDs.

I also remember someone telling me that the c64 also has a way brighter palette on NTSC than PAL.
C64 produces too high voltage levels for video signal, way out of spec. So what you're going to see on the screen is very specific to your monitor/TV. PAL, being newer system, is a bit more resilient to signal issues so that could be the reason.