Lawbadman, I can't tell you which speakers to get, nor would I presume to try. You'll need to listen to some things yourself if at all possible. What I want to stress is that you don't need "brighter" speakers, as you say - tonal balance is only part of what you crave. Clarity results from accurate transient response and low resonance as much as it does from outright extension or a flat frequency balance, which is why even tone controls will not fundamentally correct the flaw you perceive, despite the fact that such a control could certainly be used to provide some sort of additional 'brightness'. It is quite possible to have brightness without clarity, and it will sound even worse.
While I disagree (but only to an extent - I still like the speakers for their essential 'Maggie-ness') with Dekay's assessment of what the MMG's are ultimately capable of, he's dead on with his diagnoses of why these may well not be the speakers for you at this time (even though he doesn't frame it that way ;^) Flat-panel dipoles like Maggies are critically sensitive to both in-room positioning and listener positioning relative to the speakers, and a dorm room is probably not going to allow for the correct placement of either. As to the first factor, ideally Maggies should be at least 3ft., and more optimally 4 - 5ft. out from the front wall (although the MMG, which is both shorter and more angled than its big brothers, won't benefit as much from the greater distances, which is as it should be). As to the second factor, the listener must be able to position themselves with their 'line of hearing' absolutely perpendicular to the plane of the speaker panels. If you have to listen at all off-axis, you will quickly lose a lot of high frequency response - it's just the nature of this type of radiator.
My assumption is that you are experiencing both problems associated with this speaker - it's not as good a speaker as you want, and you can't properly utilize what goodness it has. Dekay is also right about them being a great value at $550 - MMG's give you some things no other speaker close to the price can do (primarily in their spatial presentation and lack of boxy colorations - great clarity however is not one of them), but that recommendation shouldn't be taken for more than what it is - on an absolute scale, these speakers are lacking in many ways. They are kind of a 'loss-leader' teaser for the Magnepan brand; consider that their next model up (the MG12) is almost twice the price, but only slightly larger. MMG's are basically sold on the premise that they will shortly be traded in and up using Maggie's full-credit program.
For your situation at the moment, a decent set of smallish 2-way box speakers (which may well run more than the MMG's, although not necessarily, especially used) could offer the kind of broad dispersion and ease of placement that you could probably use, and the right pair could also offer higher intrinsic clarity (in the senses mentioned above) than do the MMG's. It's got to be your call though - the MMG's are hard to beat in certain ways for the money, and sound quite different than what I'm suggesting. Depends on what your priorities are, both sound-wise and money-wise, and whether or not you can achieve optimum set-up with the Maggies. Even if you like the Maggie's special sound, if you can't set them up right and listen to them on-axis, don't waste money on other system tweaks trying to compensate - it won't work. And if you do have them set up right, but still crave more clarity, look for new speakers before spending on system tweaks, because you are already up against the MMG's limitations in the area which concerns you. (All IMHO, natch - Bob! :-)
