I'm going to buy a 19" LCD, my choice so far is Samsung 940B. I want one that can easily adjust brightness. The other one I've considered is Viewsonic VX924, both are about $350 at newegg.
Best bet for that is if your video card has a gamma adjustment. Otherwise, likely you'll be disappointed.
If you don't play games, you don't need to be concerned about monitor speed. 20ms will be just fine, but there are lots available at 16ms and better. You won't notice any difference with a faster one.