Agp issues all come from the early days in my opinion because neither ali or via had a stable driver for it (and it took them way too long). Nvidia was to blame also, their drivers improved stability also.
Later driver revisions worked much better but the word was out that they didn`t work stable with agp cards and people keep on copying that today (imho)... A bit like Vista, nobody wants it and it is every bit as stable and functional as windows 7 today, early driver and support problems kept it from getting popular.
I do agree about the voodoo part and actual usefulness of the agp slot. 3dfx cards speedwise work best and pci versions are just as fast.
I like the ss7 a lot and to me it is the ultimate retro allrounder. I have a system from about every era but the ss7 is what i use the most.
And it just might be pure coinsidence but every time i did build a retro pc through the years and it wasn`t stable (lockups, bluescreens), it almost always was an AT board. I now use atx boards only and have FAR less issues with win98se.
I hated dell, compaq, HP systems back in the day (for obvious reasons) but they were stable and they adopted the atx layout way earlier. But i could be just me 🤣
asus tx97-e, 233mmx, voodoo1, s3 virge ,sb16
asus p5a, k6-3+ @ 550mhz, voodoo2 12mb sli, gf2 gts, awe32
asus p3b-f, p3-700, voodoo3 3500TV agp, awe64
asus tusl2-c, p3-S 1,4ghz, voodoo5 5500, live!
asus a7n8x DL, barton cpu, 6800ultra, Voodoo3 pci, audigy1