I'm kinda in the middle of the road on this one. Some games I prefer 4:3, others I don't mind stretching out to fit my modern displays. Sometimes, it also matters what platform I'm playing on. My Pi3B+ RetroPie setup is all 4:3 with system appropriate borders to fill the rest of the space. I prefer classic console games at 4:3, but 1:1 up-scaling is fine with me to get a better image when needed.

On my classic hardware, like the DOS6.22 system, I much prefer 4:3 and using a proper 4:3 display as long as working ones can still be found.

On my Win95 system, I run it widescreen on one of my modern displays, but it's a mix depending on the game being played.

On my modern system it's very game specific. Atari Vault and 50th Anniversary, I use 4:3 with cabinet side bar art like on the Pi3 for example, but classic 3D shooters I almost always run it widescreen.

BTW, just something I though of mentioning...
Last year (actually November 2022 according to pictures), I saved a 20" Sylvania CRT TV from getting crunched in the trash truck. It wasn't anything special, but it did have both DVD and VHS built-in, which I though was kind of cool (those got somewhat popular on smaller "room" TVs at one point). So I just felt bad about it and picked it up. A year later, I had to move and decided to give it away for free on Craigslist. So for this, I did a full feature test to check what's working and what isn't. The VHS player didn't want to work, but the DVD was fine (and really, everything else.) Moreover, the DVD player had MP3 disc playback - a kind of a cool feature back in the mid-2000's, if you remember (and yes, that worked too - I tried it! 😀 )

Anyways, what I also tested was composite input on the TV. No component, unfortunately, but whatever. I have to say, though, that even with just composite I got pretty good picture on it from my PS3 (see below). If anything, what I liked about it, aside from the more natural colors and deeper blacks, was that the less detailed picture hid a lot of the 3D polygon edge "jaggies" from showing too much. As such, The Last of Us actually felt pretty life-like on the screen, despite the not-so-high resolution.

So then I thought of something else: if I could get PS3 games on this TV, then why not also try it with PC games via the composite input? And so I did! I can't remember which of my PCs I tried it with, but I tried NFS Porsche Unleashed on it (last picture shown below)... though for some reason, it looks a little worse on this picture than it actually was. All in all, I think the game looked quite OK... well, as OK as it could look in 640x480. I also tried 800x600 but didn't see any improvement in the image quality, which I expected TBH.

In any case... my point is that for those of you who want to try out gaming on a CRT but can't find a CRT monitor for cheap or at all locally, you may still be able to find a small CRT TV pretty easily. Just look for something that has at least composite or S-video input (or SCART for those of you in EU land.) Component input would be even better, but that's usually only present on the newer and bigger (27" and over) TVs. Resolution-wise, you'll probably be limited to 480p at best, unless you find one of the late high-end large CRTs... but that's jumping into a different rabbit hole. For 90's game titles, I think a small & newer CRT TV capable of 640x480 should suffice, if not deliver pretty "close enough" experience to a standard VGA monitor. So that's just another cheap/easier option to consider towards "dipping your toes in the water" with CRTs (again).

Oh, and just as an end to the above story... I put the TV on Craigslist and a lady showed up and was happy to pick it up. She brought her PS2 and Nintendo 64 and asked me if she could try out the TV, which I didn't mind at all. It worked, so she was happy, and loaded it up. Even offered to pay me $20, but I refused. I got it for free and passed it on for free - actually even better than it was, since I found it without a remote. But get this: a decade earlier, we had neighbors move out and leave a bunch of stuff after their yard sale. Near their trash, I found a remote control, which I took with an idea to play with the IR LED inside it. I never got to doing that, and the remote just sat down in a box in the garage. So when I found this TV and saw that it was a Sylvania (same as the remote I picked up), I went to the garage and got the remote out. As if by some coincidence, it wasn't just a compatible remote - it was the exact remote that was supposed to go with this TV. So perhaps it was just meant to be? 😀

BitWrangler wrote on 2024-09-09, 12:54:

So unless space was the prime concern due to moving or rearranging your space, then it made total sense to hang onto big CRT some 5 years after LCD were "default" with new systems.

I would probably add another reason that contributed to migrating off CRT rather early for me - heat. When you are living in student housing or similar and don't have air conditioning, and your tech equipment heats your room way more than your neighbours', well, you tend to get rid of things that output more heat. (And then you get a HotBurst system - one step forward, three steps back...)

VivienM wrote on 2024-09-11, 22:14:

I would probably add another reason that contributed to migrating off CRT rather early for me - heat. When you are living in student housing or similar and don't have air conditioning, and your tech equipment heats your room way more than your neighbours', well, you tend to get rid of things that output more heat.

Conversely, there are those who appreciate the extra heat output. 😉

I swear my pollen allergies got worse since CRT mostly went away here though, think all the static electricity dropped it out the air, made it cluster or deactivated it somehow.