I did some comparisons a while ago of Nisus Writer Pro running on a widescreen monitor (the "family" G5 iMac) and of Nisus Writer "classic" on a Duo (@640x480). There was a difference of a grand total of a couple of lines (!) between the two in terms of the number of lines displayed (advantage iMac), at the default resolution in NWPro (and anything much smaller makes text effectively unreadable). It was the same with Pages, Mellel, etc.
Most of my work is word processing and text editing. Yes, you get "wings" with appropriate software on a widescreen display, but I frankly don't find those much use for writing purposes, as I tend to work mainly on lengthy text documents, and tend not to need or want to look at anything other than the words that I am working on when I happen to be working. 640x480 was and is very limiting if what you want is page layout, but it is fine for what most computers of ye mid-90s were mainly bought for, which was wordprocessing, coupled with database/ spreadsheet or modest multimedia/ games. The old 800x600 monitor resolution was also very good in actual use, mainly because the screen was generally physically scaled up to accommodate the extra pixels (alas, the physical scaling couldn't continue as the resolutions grew larger, because the CRTs could only grow so big).
Higher resolutions for some uses honestly are not as useful for some everyday purposes. If you can't easily read text on screen at 12 point, in other words, there's a mismatch between your equipment and the task you are asking it to do, and it is fundamental to good workmanship that to each task there is a tool.
Mind you, I really like my 20" ColorSync CRT, the real estate on which is so much more usable than it is on a 20" LCD widescreen, simply because the CRT is physically so much larger. However, I never have it set to display its maximum 1600x1200, as it too then becomes unusable. Unfortunately, it seems at the moment to be on the way out....
Most of my work is word processing and text editing. Yes, you get "wings" with appropriate software on a widescreen display, but I frankly don't find those much use for writing purposes, as I tend to work mainly on lengthy text documents, and tend not to need or want to look at anything other than the words that I am working on when I happen to be working. 640x480 was and is very limiting if what you want is page layout, but it is fine for what most computers of ye mid-90s were mainly bought for, which was wordprocessing, coupled with database/ spreadsheet or modest multimedia/ games. The old 800x600 monitor resolution was also very good in actual use, mainly because the screen was generally physically scaled up to accommodate the extra pixels (alas, the physical scaling couldn't continue as the resolutions grew larger, because the CRTs could only grow so big).
Higher resolutions for some uses honestly are not as useful for some everyday purposes. If you can't easily read text on screen at 12 point, in other words, there's a mismatch between your equipment and the task you are asking it to do, and it is fundamental to good workmanship that to each task there is a tool.
Mind you, I really like my 20" ColorSync CRT, the real estate on which is so much more usable than it is on a 20" LCD widescreen, simply because the CRT is physically so much larger. However, I never have it set to display its maximum 1600x1200, as it too then becomes unusable. Unfortunately, it seems at the moment to be on the way out....