Double question: Widescreen resolution and 2nd X1950XT?

Hey all... I posted here a week or so back for help in upgrading to a new graphics card and you folks were a lifesaver. Well I'm back with a couple more questions for ya!

First - I just moved my CPU out of the office and into my living room and connected it to my nice new Toshiba 32" LCD HD monitor (32HLC56). The monitor only supports certain resolutions according to the manual: 640x480, 800x600, 1024x768 and 1280x1024. My PC is a Dell Dimension 8400 with a P4 3.2GHz with an ATI Radeon X300 graphics card (for the time being). I have the two devices connected with a standard VGA cable. Is there any way I can have my computer's desktop cover the entire 16x9 screen without stretching the image or am I restricted to the 4:3 aspect ratio? Will upping my gfx card change that at all?

That leads me to my second question. You all helped me work out the particulars of getting my first new independent video card since I made the jump from EGA to VGA on my dusty old 286 (ahhh... the days before fancy terms like Pentium and Centrino). I'm getting a Radeon X1950 XT and a Thermaltake dedicated graphics power supply to make the whole thing work in my year-old box. I haven't purchased the card yet - I was actually going to this week - but I've read in a couple places that a second generation of these cards is supposed to be released sometime this month and that they're going to be faster, quieter and cooler than the XTs which are currently available. Does anyone know anything about this? Should I wait a week or two? Where would I look for these 2nd gen cards? Would they be significantly more expensive? My price range tops out in the 250-280 range. Thanks in advance for any advice y'all have to offer.