A good site to check before buying an LCD monitor: http://www.digitalversus.com/duels.php?ty=6

Doesn't mention much about color, but you'll get a good graphical idea of how greys look as well as response time. It's not complete, but it does have a few decent choices.

About how widescreen might make you motion sick... There was an article I was reading earlier on that phenomenon, but I can't remember more than just that there is a reason for it.

Also a few things to keep in mind. Faster response can be misleading. It depends if they're talking about rise time, fall time, or both. Or grey to grey, white to black, etc. There isn't a standard in this unfortunately, although many are getting better about mentioning this. Also, not all monitors display the complete color gamut, especially the gamer panels.

I have a Dell 2001fp (20" 4:3), 2401fp (24" Widescreen), and an LG L246WPBN (24" Widescreen). I would recommend any of them, although the 2001fp suffers from the screen door effect, although it's not really all that bad. One thing to keep in mind when buying Dell LCDs. Dell is known for silently changing the panels in their models to cheaper brands, so you could know a person with what seems like the exact same model, but their monitor will look much better than yours.

If you're going after color reproduction, the choice is easy. Eizo. They tend to be 14 bit per color whereas other monitors tend to be 4-8 bits per color. But you'll be paying 3-4x the cost of your typical consumer grade LCD monitor. As mentioned, certain panels tend to be higher quality than others, and you'll want to pay attention to more of the panel type than the monitors brand. (Some Apple LCD's actually have the same panel as some Dell LCDs, yet the Dells cost significantly less, and have more input options).

Finally, find out about the dead pixel policy. I don't know of any manufacturer who has a 0 dead pixel policy (Sorry Samsung fans. Unless you live in Australia or Korea, they do not have a 0 dead pixel policy unlike what many people think). Sometimes brick and mortar stores can be your friends in which you can exchange for any reason. Another reason why Dell is very popular. Within the first 30 days you can exchange for any reason, and while this does get abused quite a bit, on the other hand it's helpful if you want the perfect monitor. I'm one of those people who thinks that 1 dead pixel is 1 dead pixel too many. The only reason I got an LG monitor instead of another Dell 24" was that their newest monitor stands were way too low for me, even at their highest elevation.

And as other people have stated, there is such a thing as too big. 24" is good enough for me. I don't think I could go much higher. By no means a 30". That is just too big. You might want bigger or find that 24" is still too big. Although I would like the resolution of the bigger monitors. I'm hoping that they can start improving upon that.