Ole timer gamers you'll love this, so I had a SONY 30" CRT flat screen (ok so it was virtually flat), $2000, 75lbs with a 15ms refresh rate it was the shiznick. The draw back was it was so heavy I couldn't take it to LAN parties. When I did go I ended up having to playing on a 19" (WHICH STANK!). Also, the thing was so heavy it caused but a bow in my $1000 desk.
I had the first commercially made water cooler tower "Koolance" that I used of course to overclocked my Intel Pentium III 933Mhz to 1 GHZ, then soiled myself with excitement. Then the coolant eventually rotted through the radiator down onto $1,500 worth of hardware letting all the smoke out. Oh and they didn't have guarantee against leakage warranties back then.
Internet speeds and connections were so unreliable to that if you didn't have a commercial T1 line in your house or you were 2 miles from the server you were always getting your hinie shot off before rounding a corner, giving a whole new term to the word LAG compared to today. Those who've been gaming no more than 15 years have no clue