I guess it depends on your eyesight. The normal native resolution of a (non-widescreen) 19" LCD is the same as 17", i.e. 1280 x 1024, so everything is that much bigger. This suits my eyes, but I can see that it wouldn't suit everyone.
On the subject of widescreen, in places like PC World that's all you can buy now. They don't appear to stock conventional format monitors at all. For my type of computing, I nearly always find myself wanting more vertical space, not more horizontal space, so widescreen monitors are just an irritation. And in fact, a xx-inch widescreen monitor has less screen area than a xx-inch conventional format monitor. Am I just an unimportant minority, or are people being seduced by fashion?