Is it possible that LED displays could be too bright for our eyes when functioning at maximum capacity?

Yes, which also depends. If in bright area, max brightness is necessary or else you can't see anything on the display. But max brightness in dark area can be irritating.

max luminous intensity for LED is around 8 cd.

no, it wouldn't hurt your eyes unless you got some kind of medical condition where you can go crazy when someone flash light at your face. i know my friend who can have seizure when we point flashlight at him in the dark.

beside it's glowing, not shining. like looking at very bright firefly, compare to looking at very dim sun at sunset. it's cold light vs warm light.

edit:
it was 2am when i wrote above, so not very good analogy. now i've a good sleep, i can think of better anology:

incandescent light bulb vs fluorescent lamp

fluorescent lamp can illuminate more area than incandescent light bulb. if you stand under both lamp (not looking at it), you can "see" fluorescent lamp is brighter. yet, try to stare at fluorescent lamp for 10 minutes, it will not hurt your eyes, it will only effect your sensor - you can see "stars" like when you're closing your eyes at the place of the lamp in your vision. and your vision will return to normal within a minute.

now try to stare at the not so bright incandescent light bulb. you can't even last 10 seconds. try it for 1 minute. you can go to school in brickfields,

what's the different between the two is luminous flux vs luminous intensity. luminous flux is what you can see, luminous intensity is what will hurt you. LED can be 1000 brighter than the sun, yet i wouldn't hurt your eyes because its low luminous intensity.

ah... if you are old enough, you can see the different using CRT and LCD monitor. one is brighter, the other will hurt your eyes.

This post has been edited by badai: Feb 12 2011, 08:11 AM