Upgrade from CRT to Samsung 931C

Excuse my lack of knowledge here, but I have several questions regarding my first LCD. If this has all been answered, please inform me and I'll dig further on this site.

The time is nearing for me to get rid of my CRT monitor I've had for 4 years or so. It is in no way a bad monitor for what I do (View pictures, minimal retouching of photographs, Warcraft III, minimal movie viewing) aside from it's large size taking up half my desk. I'm planning to spoil myself and buy a large LCD monitor, 19 inches or low 20's. I made the decision I didn't want a Widescreen, but this is purely based on looks so far. I do not fully understand the benefit of the widesccreen monitor? Is it just to view widescreen format DVD's? Would you not be better off just getting a 19" standard and having the black boxes above and below? What about for gaming, is there some advantage a 19" widescreen offers over a 19"?

The monitor I'm looking at is 931C. It seems to have everything I could want. 19"(not wide), a fast response time (2ms), nice design. I do play games, but I'm not a fanatic, but I do find that new game Crysis quite appealing to look at, but maybe I'm just dreaming.

So with these factors considered, and a budget of about $500 CA for a monitor, could someone give me some pointers or recommendations?

Thanks!