>Also, what about refresh rate? My current CRT monitor supports refresh rates of 60MHz, 70Mhz, and higher. Is a higher refresh rate easier on the eyes?

FWIW, Refresh rate only applies to CRTs (it related to the scan rate of the electron gun). With LCD screens you just don't get flicker but the response time (i.e. how quickly a LCD pixel changes state) can be important for gaming etc.

HTH,
Viv