I've used three out of four of the TiBook revisions as daily drivers, and here's my take:
A. The original 400/500mhz models are junk with severe build quality/design flaws. Avoid. Never had a second-gen VGA model so can't really comment on them, but allegedly some of the worst structural issues got some fixes.
B. All the DVI models from 667mhz to 1Ghz are pretty interchangeable. I remember my 667 (first-gen DVI) having an issue with the paint pitting on the handrests, I'm not so sure about the 867 (second gen). The vast majority of the Ti's issued by the company I worked for were of the DVI generation, and consistently the worst problems inherent to *every* Ti generation was the hinges seizing up. This was never really fixed, ever, and when it happened it wasn't uncommon for the user to literally rip the screen off the unit.
(The other inherent issue with Ti's was simply their fragility; drop them once from a fairly low altitude, even just rap them on a desk too hard, and you'll pop the bonding between the frame and the upper case panel. Once that happens you end up with a "floppy" laptop that droops visibly on one side if you lift it by the opposite corner. Just about every functional Ti that was handed in at upgrade time had this condition, but it was actually sort of unusual for Ti's to even last until the next scheduled upgrade; people found all sorts of creative ways to destroy them prematurely. Granted it's sort of the status quo that people abuse corporate laptops regardless of brand, but Ti's had really glass chins compared to most contemporary machines.)
This all said: if you want to talk performance it's no contest; a DVI Ti will wipe the floor with a Lombard or Pismo. It's better by every measure. And if you really want to drive a 1920x1080 monitor the Lombard has only 8MB of VRAM. "24 bit color" usually involves a 32 bit framebuffer allocation on "modern" (post mid-1990's) video chipsets and I'm pretty sure the ATI Rage is no exception, so, no, the math says it won't drive one, at least not without somehow disabling the built in monitor, and even then... the framebuffer would *barely* fit. You *may* be able to use 16 bit color, but the DVI Ti's all have at least 32MB so they'll run a monitor that large with impunity.
So... yeah, if you can get a DVI Ti in good physical shape (I'm sure there are literally *dozens* of them still in circulation), preferably one that has had the hinges replaced by sturdier third-party ones (my personal Ti that I gave away years ago had this modification) then that's what you want for an OS 9 laptop.
(So far as the hinge issues go, basically *every* laptop Apple ever built had similar clutch issues. Really the only difference with the Ti verses the earlier model is because of the minimalistic design of the screen mounts you were slightly more likely do do something dramatic like break the screen off when the clutch fails. Lombards and Pismos aren't immune either.)
A. The original 400/500mhz models are junk with severe build quality/design flaws. Avoid. Never had a second-gen VGA model so can't really comment on them, but allegedly some of the worst structural issues got some fixes.
B. All the DVI models from 667mhz to 1Ghz are pretty interchangeable. I remember my 667 (first-gen DVI) having an issue with the paint pitting on the handrests, I'm not so sure about the 867 (second gen). The vast majority of the Ti's issued by the company I worked for were of the DVI generation, and consistently the worst problems inherent to *every* Ti generation was the hinges seizing up. This was never really fixed, ever, and when it happened it wasn't uncommon for the user to literally rip the screen off the unit.
(The other inherent issue with Ti's was simply their fragility; drop them once from a fairly low altitude, even just rap them on a desk too hard, and you'll pop the bonding between the frame and the upper case panel. Once that happens you end up with a "floppy" laptop that droops visibly on one side if you lift it by the opposite corner. Just about every functional Ti that was handed in at upgrade time had this condition, but it was actually sort of unusual for Ti's to even last until the next scheduled upgrade; people found all sorts of creative ways to destroy them prematurely. Granted it's sort of the status quo that people abuse corporate laptops regardless of brand, but Ti's had really glass chins compared to most contemporary machines.)
This all said: if you want to talk performance it's no contest; a DVI Ti will wipe the floor with a Lombard or Pismo. It's better by every measure. And if you really want to drive a 1920x1080 monitor the Lombard has only 8MB of VRAM. "24 bit color" usually involves a 32 bit framebuffer allocation on "modern" (post mid-1990's) video chipsets and I'm pretty sure the ATI Rage is no exception, so, no, the math says it won't drive one, at least not without somehow disabling the built in monitor, and even then... the framebuffer would *barely* fit. You *may* be able to use 16 bit color, but the DVI Ti's all have at least 32MB so they'll run a monitor that large with impunity.
So... yeah, if you can get a DVI Ti in good physical shape (I'm sure there are literally *dozens* of them still in circulation), preferably one that has had the hinges replaced by sturdier third-party ones (my personal Ti that I gave away years ago had this modification) then that's what you want for an OS 9 laptop.
(So far as the hinge issues go, basically *every* laptop Apple ever built had similar clutch issues. Really the only difference with the Ti verses the earlier model is because of the minimalistic design of the screen mounts you were slightly more likely do do something dramatic like break the screen off when the clutch fails. Lombards and Pismos aren't immune either.)