Having read this thread recently, it struck me how some people seem to be suggesting here that there is no point in going with a DX4 100 486 system when you could just get a Pentium system instead, but then the same applies to Pentium II, VLB or PCI, and so on down the line.
Point being, it's a fairly arbitrary line anyway, but for a classic system, it's reasonable that someone may have upgraded a CPU to a higher speed 486, if their system hardware and software could easily enough support it, same as we might choose to upgrade these same systems today without just scrapping them and going with DOSBox or something – which would miss some of the point though and of course charm.
User built computers (no, selecting customization options when ordering a computer doesn't count 😉 ), at least the ones I've made for myself over the years, don't exist in a set vacuum of time, though they are occasionally moved on from to newer base systems.
My arbitrary cutoff for the classic 93/94/95 era 486 VLB build I'm working on is pre Windows 95 and naturally pre Pentium, in terms of technology progression, not necessarily chronologically. I'm expecting it to handle well enough (though not flawlessly) up to around the time of Doom, System Shock, and Descent, which are from the same time period.
Having both a DX2 66 and DX4 100 that are drop-in compatible with my motherboard messing with jumpers, arbitrarily choosing to not use the DX4 100 (keeping in mind that it's from this same time period anyway) seems senseless for me. Perhaps it's a bit of a moot point, but I'm not trying to recreate a specific system I once had, as I never had a 486 anyway, with it being a bit past the time of the hand-me-down parts I'd tinker with as a kid, and before the time of being able to afford new parts myself. For me it's less to do with nostalgia (beyond maybe the basic AT and ISA platforms – I didn't even game much in DOS back then and was more of an NES kid) and more to do with curiosity, ambition, fulfillment, and respect for the capabilities and variability of these computers in their time and place in history.
Lo and behold, the reign of the Pentium was upon them, and though the venerable 486 was cut low by the scythe of obsolescence, it was not its doom, for the hearts and minds of good people still held sway and memory of glorious times. 🤣 Joking aside, for me at the time, before the Pentium, the 386 seemed like more of a prominent game changer, though in retrospect, I'm not really sure why. It may have had to do with the spread of the popularity and availability of PCs to a growing consumer market.
So anyway, as for the thread title question in general, I'd have to say for me the answer is yes.* The 486/VLB/DOS 6.22/Windows 3.11 era seems ideal for a classic DOS gaming machine, living on the cusp of the edge during a fast paced, transitional time for desktop computing.
*Of course, this is only really a question we can answer for ourselves.
Cheers. 😎