But the framerate of a CRT is surely limited by the decay time required for the phosphor to stop glowing. I suppose this could be mitigated with a weaker beam for each higher framerate frame...but then you'd get a dimmer image.

Though after looking it up: seems hard to find, some quote as little as 1ms, but the general trend is towards 4-5ms, so 200fps in theory. Learn something new every day.

I suppose in that case, then it really just comes down to people having fond memories of lugging their CRTs to lans, but not wanting to re-enact it when we have great >=27" 144hz 4k monitors that are also like 10mm thick :p

I couldn't imagine how big and heavy a CRT with similar specs to modern displays would be!