I don't consider any LCD acceptable for gaming. Even the fastest 2ms TNs have intolerable motion blur at 60fps to me, and I hate the grainy look on everything that is caused by Hi-FRC and/or screen door effects. The fact that many games use dark color palettes amplifies the effect of their poor black levels, and the fixed resolutions also make them less useful for gaming.
I can appreciate the benefits of the larger sizes available, but I would rather have 20" of a perfect image than a 24" or 30" one with numerous problems.
That being said, if you actually need to buy a new monitor and don't have an existing CRT, I wouldn't recommend getting a CRT. The biggest flaw of CRTs is how hard it is to get one that doesn't have some defect or another. The only option is buying used or refurb models, which are notorious for problems, and they also tend to develop further issues in shipping. Even if you manage to find a new one somewhere, it's almost certainly from the last production batches and is likely to have problems, since both Sony and Mitsubishi, who created all the high end AG tubes, made garbage quality units in their final months of manufacturing.
You can still get a perfect one, but you should expect to play the return game a few times. At this point, almost any CRT is going to be out of warranty and you'll probably have to pay for shipping, which can become expensive very quickly. I think the only realistic way to get one is to do a local pickup with a seller that gives you a choice between several identical units.
Actually, LCDs have been hit by the same problem that caused CRTs to go out of production. The vast majority of people would rather have a cheap display than pay more for a high quality image. LCDs have essentially stopped improving for over a year now, with even many of the better ones being phased out in favor of cheap TNs of the same size. The display market sucks all around these days.
thats interesting.. i wonder why a company such as eizo switched all their products to lcd then
The same reason they switched many of their IPS models to VAs. Most people find the cheaper ones acceptable, and the better ones weren't selling well enough to justify producing them any more.
However, I think LCDs caught up a while ago with the accuracy of bright colors, which is apparently what counts for print matching. It's the dark colors that they have problems with.