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> most commercial music is mastered for the poorest environments (in the car, over the radio).

One thing to consider (at least, that I consider when mastering my own music) is what processing might be applied in the future.

I helped out at the radio station back in college, and you can see the signal chain for audio coming from the studio onto the airwaves. Radio stations often add at least 9 dB of gain via compression, sometimes more. So, if you want a quick and dirty "how does my track sound on the radio?" toss on a master limiter and give yourself 12 dB of gain, then see whether it sounds as you intend (then don't forget to remove the gain after you've made your tweaks).

> a story I heard about an album that was mastered by the artist, and pressed to CD with a high-pitched whine over the top which the artist hadn't been able to hear

Funnily enough, this was common in albums recorded in the 80s and 90s. Reason? CRT monitors were used in the studio, and the high-pitched sound of the screens would get picked up by the microphones. A little discussion here: http://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threads/high-frequency-tones-o...