ZERO (absolute minimum) mo Sharpness and/or Contrast settings. That would improve the quality of texts a lot, but you would never reach the crispiness of a regular PC monitor.
If the texts are too small at 1920x1080, it would be more comfortable to read at 1365x768. Malaki naman yung screen so sit farther than you would from a regular monitor.
Get a wireless (laser) keyboard para you can sit even farther, then you wouldnt notice the shadowing on the texts that much.
Why dont you want to try VGA? Your screen will look quite nice on it - mild and nice on the eyes. Im not sure if you can get it up to 1920x1080 via VGA, BUT, if you play an MKV via KMP or similar software media player, you would hardly notice any difference in IQ between that of HDMI and VGA.