Stop with the pixel race? Seriously? Monitors have been stagnant for a decade. Look at how many laptop screens are stuck STILL at 1366X768. What pixel race are you talking about?
I'm sure that a lot of it depends on usage (when doesn't it?) and even web browsing involved a lot of CTRL-scrolling the first time I visit a page to scale the text and images up. Still, being able to work on plain old 1080p video with room for a timeline and tools is incredibly useful and moving from a TN panel to IPS made it easier to get more accurate colors.
On one hand, the number of cheap 1920x1080 TN panels that have trickled down to even cheap notebook and desktop displays is a good thing but it seems like we're just starting to see better than that now that 4K and 5K are hitting the high end. Outside of watching movies, I can't think of anywhere that 1920x1080 would be all you'd want.