Surely this topic was discussed ad infinitum back in the day.   The trick would be to find those old discussions.  Many of the relevant forums have disappeared, which is why web forums are a terrible idea as compared to UseNet.  Sigh.

You might hunt around the MacGurus.com forums.  They were around during time period in question.  You might also try a search of Google Groups, as it contains the UseNet archive, although the search seems to malfunction (not return stuff that **I know** is in there) as often as not.   Search on meaningful terms in the group hierarchy comp.sys.mac.*