Sweet! deleting $HOME/.fonts.conf fixes it for gnome-terminal and gecko at least. Still it's a bug though, and it didn't exist in dapper.
-- Semi-random ugly font rendering in Edgy (no font hinting) https://launchpad.net/bugs/63403 -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs