the excitement of discovering previous unknown territory always goes accompanied with the not always welcome addition of knowledge. While learning something new in its self is almost synonym for humanity as a whole the new lessons learned do not always show a truth you where maybe hoping to find. or sometimes you can test your theories you mused about before entering this unknown territory.

either way, there is a lot to be sad for both sides but it seems that even the most clear and present theories about how and why something should be this way always come 2 or even 3 folded.

is it for the best? Maybe! does it need to be included? Maybe! do you need? ......... no, not really, but it does look pretty fine!

Going beyond 60fps was normal for crt monitors.

Yep. Also for everyone who disabled vsync.

The answer to all those questions is yes. We became stuck for so long at 30 and then 60 mostly because of consoles. Fortunately, you can now get 120+ displays everywhere. There are diminishing returns though since you can only get so far with halving the refresh times over and over:

30 FPS - picture refreshes once per 33.3 ms
60 FPS - picture refreshes once per 16.6 ms (you cut half so 16.6 ms)
120 FPS - picture refreshes once per 8.3 ms (you cat half so 8.3 ms)
240 FPS - picture refreshes once per 4.16 ms (you cut half so 4.16 ms)

Once you reach this territory, it starts taking immense increases in HW performance for miniscule returns. 480 FPS would cut you down only slightly over 2 ms for requiring double the processing power. But going above 60 is definitely valuable, especially for fast paced games. If you add in the monitor response and processing times, keyboard and mouse input delays, playing an FPS game on 60 FPS can amount to feeling like playing with 20-25 ping constantly even if you are playing an offline game. I started playing Unreal Tournament 2004 and other such very fast paced games vastly better once I got a 240 Hz monitor, easily taking on the hardest bots where I was having trouble before. My aim got much more precise, the picture is much smoother. There are only benefits outside the cost of course.

The is no "venturing" for me, I have been in 144Hz territory for years now. And I won't go back to shitty 60Hz screens anytime soon.

That's the REAL knowledge you can get :-D

Many games will have funny glitches going beyond 60fps, sometimes 30fps even.

144hz is amazing and in my experience people tend to dismiss it until they get used to it for a while, then it's hard to live without it. You adjust eventually... I'm replaying all the Fallout games right now and they're all limited to 60fps... but it takes a while because 144fps is so awesome.

it seems that the jump from 60 to 100 is already quite demanding for the hardware
and i have found not so much ground for 144 hz at the moment, tbh stellaris is the only game i have i can let run on 144 fps without the noisy fans from the gpu and such but that does look very clear. Not sure why more frames per second grant this ' clean ' feeling. your sure that this is not some visual trick?
seems i was right about one thing though, should have waited at least another 4 years ;p

Strategy games, where things are mostly static, are not exactly where high refresh-rate monitors shine. Shooters and action-adventures on the other hand...

Anyway, while I agree that the perceived effect of high-refresh rate gaming is pleasing, I hardly consider it something you can't live without. After a long day, when you focus on the story and gameplay, you cease to notice the butter smoothness at one point.

The only downside is that you start noticing the lack of it when "downgrading" to 60 Hz, but that doesn't last long either. I would compare it to shadows, the first thing I drop to medium when I want to increase my fps by a bit - you may notice them when you're focused on observing them, but start playing a game and - unless there's a jarring drop in quality between high and medium - you're not that likely to feel any difference.