I'm not sure if this has anything to do with the recent Safari update, but I'm beginning to notice this a lot. There is a drastic difference in the way each browser is rendering fonts.
for instance, I took screenshots of what I am seeing here on stackoverflow... http://twitpic.com/q43eh
I have verified that this is a trend via my co-workers machines.
has anyone noticed this or have any thoughts on non-hack solutions?
Font rendering isn't specified anywhere in the standards and therefore may (and will) vary between browsers and platforms.
In particular, Safari on Windows renders fonts like OS X does which tends to look weird to Windows users as Windows has quite a different take on how to render fonts than OS X.
You can definitely notice this, especially if you use Expression Web SuperPreview. This is just a general problem of the web, just like folks can hit Ctrl-+ and make your text bigger. Try not to use many absolute coordinates in CSS and the layout engine will ensure it's still readable