If you're going to stick with serifs try something like Georgia which is also a warmed over serif font, but somewhat More warmed over than Courier New.
If you want a pleasant holy war right up there with debates about wifi emissions and if religion is true, try suggesting the modern printing and computing world should stick in the sans serif families. There's plenty of journal articles on both sides, etc.
Most debate about font shape is meaningless without discussing color scheme. Grayish blurry-oish text on light yellow medium-large size is what the Slab Serif families were originally invented for two centuries ago ... what a surprise they'll look bad compared to a sans family font (or most anything else) on a pure white backlit background with pitch black letters.
Note that most end users don't really care. The TV/monitor is covered with 1/4 inch of dust and cat fur, they're reading printed matter nearly in the dark and they don't really care what the color temp of their light source is other than it being the cheapest. You're talking about optimizing in the decimal places for the snobs not basic legibility for the masses.
http://hivelogic.com/articles/top-10-programming-fonts
The last 3 fonts listed on the page are really strong for programming.