Sony does make nice monitors. Their 18" LCDs are nice too but I never did a side-by-side comparison.
You know, I've had a ViewSonic A90 19" for a couple of years. It was inexpensive and works great. I'm sure the Sony would look better but would it so much better to spend the extra $?
It's usually small text that suffers on lower quality monitors. I say you shouldn't be looking at such small text anyway so just make it larger and it'll look good on any monitor.
