Greg,
I was in your situation some 9 months ago and decided to go the an LCD, mainly for two reasons:
1. Space
2. Price versus quality
The first one is obvious. The second reason not so much. CRT's are - at least in theory - superior to LCDs. A good CRT provides much higher resolution and larger tonal range. Unfortunately the stores here sell either some cheap CRTs, or some photo equipment stores hold the real expensive stuff. CRTs often show big differences, even the same make and model. Differences is brightness, distortion, lack of sharpness in corners, etc., to mention only a few. LCDs often have dead pixels, but two or three of those are usually not critical.
A friend of mine has a professional Sony 22" CRT and this is really something. But I guess it costs around $1500-$2000, which is considerably more than I was willing to spend. Also, the size would require me to get a huge desk to hold it.
I got the ViewSonic VP191B (Dave mentioned he got the larger VP211B) and I am very satisfied. Only the resolution could be higher.
The ViewSonic and some other LCDs have a swivel stand and can be turned into portrait position, which I use most of the time. This allows me to put the menus on the bottom while still being able to see a relatively large image.
I also tried to use dual monitors, hooking up my old 17" CRT. Unfortunately I wasn't able to set up my graphic card so it would both support CRT and LCD display in a reasonably good fashion (it did work, but refresh rates and resolution setup was somehow limited).
I remember John's Samsung 192N LCD has received some favourable reviews as well.
You wrote that a same sized LCD would give you a larger viewing area than a CRT. However, please consider that the LCD usually doesn't give you the same high resolution as a CRT can give. This means that although a 17" LCD gives you a larger image area, you get less pixels than on a 17" CRT.
Regarding digital output on the graphic card (DVI interface), you should get a monitor with digital input. It can improve the picture quality, as the picture data doesn't need to be converted to analog and back again in the monitor.
Most 19" LCDs have the same resolution as 17" LCDs, that is 1280x1024 pixels (so does my ViewSonic).
If you want to enjoy movies or computer games on your monitor, a fast LCD is required. My ViewSonic VP191B is not fast (there are other ones from the same company that are fast). Just bear this in mind (it's OK for viewing a movie, but what do I have a TV for?).
One last thing - I wouldn't try to compare monitors (both LCD or CRT) in the shop. They are usually set up wrong and you will probably choose the one which by chance may be set up correctly or match the PC setup (this is what I've seen here in Israel and in some European consumer electronics stores). But perhaps US shops work more professional.
Regards,