I find text very hard to read on a 27" 4K monitor with no scaling. Not sure if it has something to do with me getting older and wearing glasses.

I do the same, but with a 36" screen to match the pixel pitch of standard size 1080p monitors. I can't imagine giving up 75% of my work area in exchange for prettier fonts.

Similar. My last screen upgrade is a 32" unit at 2560x1440. It has more-or-less the same pitch as my previous 23.5" 1920x1080 devices. With no scaling everything is the same size but I can have more visible. Sometimes I use the larger one effectively as two portrait screens instead of one landscape. One of the older monitors rotates, I have that set portrait too.

Couldn't agree more. My primary monitor is a 43" 4k LG at unscaled, native resolution. I can fit five 94 column wide terminals tiled across, each showing 140 lines of text.

Is the text super crisp? Nope. Would I give up all this space for smoother text? Not a chance. Would I replace it with a 43" 8k monitor? In a heartbeat.

You must have super sharp vision