> 1024x768 which wasn’t typical for a 15” screen at the time.
I double-take at statements like this. I forget how much variation in experience there was. But, being in the SF Bay Area, we were able to read Computer Shopper etc. and carpool to the South Bay to get whatever we wanted. I recall trips to will-call doors at warehouses, as well as private sellers in small apartments. I guess I was spoiled for choice.
I distinctly remember having a 15" monitor that did 1024x768 around 1992, and working out the X modelines to use it with Slackware by 1994. I went higher from there as I got my hands on bigger 17" or 21" monitors. I'm pretty sure my 21" Nanao was usually running at 1600x1200 a couple years later. I always felt that image quality and keyboards were worth investing in, since I would spend so much time exposed to them.
As far as I recall, we often had to trade off lower color depth for higher resolutions, since framebuffer VRAM was usually limited. A lot of time was spent in 8-bit psuedo color palette modes with XFree86 before eventually using 15/16 bit "true color" modes. I don't think 24-bit made much sense until later with 3D accelerators that had more VRAM.