Retina Macbook Pro: fonts look terrible
Apple announced in the 2012 WWDC Keynote that applications needed to be updated to take advantage of the Retina display. Apps calling Apple text display APIs may benefit from Apple's improvements thereto without needing to be updated. Apps that use routines that had not been updated would use pixel doubling, which would make their text display using half the resolution of apps properly designed for the new machine.

Apple, naturally, has updated many of their apps, but the versions of third-party apps on the machine you tried had likely not been updated.

There is little you as an end user can do to make the programs render text better, but if you are using products from reputable vendors who update their products frequently, such updates should be released soon to take advantage of Apple's new HiDPI settings.