I always start with the CRT (picture tube) and work back. In my opinion, the best CRT on earth bar none is the Mitsubishi Diamondtron. This is because Mitsubishi licensed the Trinitron tube from Sony then improved it with a better electron gun design.

The basic Trinitron design is the best for a number of reasons -- its main drawback, the faint horizontal lines (shadows) caused by the tension wires across the aperture grill, are outweighed by the advantages. The advantages of an aperture grille over a shadow mask include much higher efficiency (a shadow mask only allows about 15% of the beam current to reach the screen, the aperture grill passes much more) and higher vertical resolution.

A number of manufacturers agree with me. You can get Diamondtron tubes from such manufacturers as Samsung, Iiyama, Viewsonic/Optiquest, and, of course, Mitsubishi themselves. All are on my recommended list, and all have consumer, professional, and "prosumer" lines. Of course there are others that may be just as good--but to my mind, these are the leaders. Of course, all those years of rosin fumes from slaving over a hot soldering iron may well have rotted my brain, so your mileage may vary...

As far as the comparison between CRT and LCD monitors, you can view my opinion here in an article that I am both working to expand and add a "part 2" to soon.