I had a pair of great 4:3 monitors (Sony GDM-F520) which I was using until a couple of years ago. The way I use my systems (At home some gaming, photo/video work, general computing, no movie watching. At work spreadsheets, browsers, documents, technical diagrams) I wanted something widescreen. That being said, I don't like 16:9 either because all of the 16:9 options lose pixels compared to the 16:10 options in the same class (e.g. 1920x1080 v. 1920x1200). I was already running 1600x1200 as my "average" res and 2048x1536 was available to me on that display. There's no way I was "downgrading" to 1080 rows when I bought a new LCD monitor.
I find that 16:10 allows me to edit dSLR AR pictures (3:2) with excellent space for palettes and toolbars. Ditto with 16:9 video - I'm not watching the video, I'm editing. In 16:10 I can have "full HD" video on screen and still have room for some ribbons of tools and controls when viewing full HD.
Forums like [H] are full of people who do nothing but play games and watch movies "in their room", and they endlessly go on and on about how most games are Hor+ and you can "see more" on a 16:9 monitor regardless of the number of pixels available on it. Lots of games have adjustable FOV and I'm not giving up the pixels or productivity of 16:10 for a minor FOV reduction in those games which are Hor+ and lack tweakable FOV.
At work I have a crappy company-provided 1680x1050 16:10 display and at home I have an NEC 2490WUXi. For both uses 16:10 is perfect for productivity. I'm almost never looking at one thing full screen (except maybe some spreadsheets or project plans). A browser, terminal, outlook, word, access, PPT, whatever is usually one window on my screen and I'm often cross referencing between windows while working. I would find 16:9 limiting and less productive.
Unfortunately 16:9 is the "lowest common denominator". Hardcore gamers will give up resolution in order to get a little more FOV or not have to see letterboxing on movies (who cares? You aren't scaling the content or losing any pixels to watch 1920x1080 programming on a 1920x1200 display!) Average Joe falls for the "fullHD" marketing hoopla and somehow feels it's superior to 16:10. As a result prices are dropping on 16:9 panels (although most of them suck) due to supply/demand and it's being rammed down our throat.
The newer NEC PA professional series (with IPS panels, hardware LUT etc...) comes in both 16:9 and 16:10. I think the writing is on the wall there too unfortunately.