[dphase]

This can be changed on OS X with a

  defaults -currentHost write -globalDomain AppleFontSmoothing -int [value]

I personally use a value of 1. There's an entire article on this at http://osxdaily.com/2010/02/18/change-font-smoothing-setting...

[dchest]

This is a different thing: it disables subpixel rendering. Doesn't affect hinting.