The glass vs. screen discussion is a us vs. europe story aswell. In sweden I think almost every cham keeper has them in glassenclosures with excellent result. So I dont think you can say glass enclosures are bad (end of discussion).

I keep my cham in a glassenclosure and shes doing great.

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0.1 C. calyptratus

I think another issue is that when people think glass enclosure here in the States they think aquarium with screen top. The glass enclosures in Europe people typically talk about are much different. It truly depends on the climate. Glass cages of any kind here in Florida would create a truly unhealthy environment(except for pygmeleons, of course).

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Julirs http://www.julirschameleons.com 2.2.50+ Veiled 1.1 Oustalet 1.2 Nosy Be 5.3.3 Pygmelions 1.0 Fischers 0.0.1 Mellers 0.1 Ambilobe 0.1 Side-Striped

The question is, do pygmies really do so well in commercial glas-enclosures?

If I look at the amount of health issus that occur, like sudden deaths and especially the swollen-eyes-symptom, then i start to doubt it.

I don't keep pygmies myself, but I've heard of some changes experienced keepers have made in their husbandry lately, with significant results:

Basically their notion was to treat pygmies like "montane-species", which they actually are (R.brevicaudatus live in heights up to 1.300 meters above sea-level).
This means bigger ventilation,and I'm not talking about screen cages, I'm talking about DIY-enclosures similar to the ones shown here.

Another issue contributed to health problems, is the lack of a basking spot.
Field studies have revealed that Rieppeleon brevicaudatus like to bask in the morning, so they can warm themselves up.
This can be simulated through an additional LOW (!) wattage cold-light halogen bulb (10-20w you need to test it) that goes on for 2 hours in the morning and 2 hours in the afternoon.
They do tolerate short-time temperature-peaks up to 30°C under the spot, but it is utterly important that the enclosure doesn't overheat (-> bigger ventilation stripes), so that they can retreat into colder areas.

The only issue that turns up now is humidity. Through the additional ventilation the enclosures dry up quicker. This maybe good because germs can't reproduce as well as in an wet enviroment, but the chameleons still need a decent humidity tolive, but luckely their are misting-systems and drippers.

with best regards,
albacheck