Where I used to work, we got top of the line boxes (600 MHz was top of the line at the time) with top of the line video cards (nVidia GeForce was top of the line at the time) and bee-yoo-tee-ful 21" monitors.

Sweet stuff. It was in part because the VP of Technology recognized the productivity gains from having highly-trained employees working on good equipment and in part because the VP of Technology was alpha dev in late-night Quake sessions ;-)

Now I'm a finishing my graduate degree and the computers available to students are so abysmally outdated that I had to buy my own workstation to keep my sanity intact.