Posted on 
Jul 07, 2003 01:17 pm Ya, it's been an ongoing issue with me as well. I used to always run in 16-bit mode because it is substantially less CPU power and the results on the monitor are still good. However, due to new software requiring 32-bit (WaveLab was my main problem app too) I have moved on to 32-bit.
I liken this conspiracy to anything else, like the new video game that your kid wants that requires a minimum of a P3/800 to run or need 256 MB Ram...it virtually forces the consumer to stay current in hardware in order to continuing computing the way they want to.
Also, while the theory of 16-bit being a good optimization is still true, with todays 64 MB and 128 MB dual processor video cards down in the $100 range, plus, the basic architecture of the AGP bus, sersiously mimizes the affects of going to 32-bit. AGP, by way of it's architecture bypasses a lot of the bottlenecks that PCI has to deal with so it can do it's job much faster and much better and if it needs more power it has direct access to system ram to just take it and use it at will. The 16-bit optimization had much more impact when we were all running PCI video cards with Voodoo2 accelerator cards (remember those?).
And another thing, under the topic of trivial knowledge, is that in web development there is also this commonly believed myth about a "websafe color palette" of 216 colors (or thereabouts) that display well on all monitors all the time. Well, thanks to 16-bit users that isn't true due to the way 16-bit is rendered and displayed there are only truly about 14 websafe colors and they are all nasty shades of yellow and green.