Bino, you have to realize that the hardware recommendations we make here often reflect the biggest differences you'll notice playing AH and other games. While there ARE several guys here that overclock to the limits, the vast majority of us (if we overclock at all) don't push it to its extreme limits, and as a result water cooling, in our eyes, is a waste of money. It's not that we are against water cooling, it's just an unnecessary expense for most of us... and if money isn't the factor, then it's unnecessary as far as maintenance and voiding of warranty and all that.
While an LCD may not make that much of a difference on a work machine, it makes a HUGE difference in games such as this one, where you can make out the shape of a plane that is well beyond the 6.0K icon range... or a tank that is way off in the distance. It really can make a life-or-death difference in the game. If you look at things from a 'how much difference will this make in Aces High' perspective, then you'll see that an LCD upgrade will provide a MUCH, MUCH, MUCH higher level of gameplay quality compared to overclocking and water-cooling.
Yes your SSD laptop may boot faster but not make much of a difference FOR WORK USE (especially through a VPN), you have to realize two things. Laptop-grade SSD's aren't notoriously fast, and the difference in gaming is a lot more noticeable. A lot of micro-stutters will be eliminated.
And then there is common sense. If you have money of your own to play with and want to risk damaging your new components with water cooling (potential leaks) and overclocking... AND voiding the warranty in the process... I say.. GO FOR IT! Whatever floats your boat! BUT WHEN YOU HAVE TO GET PERMISSION from the Mrs. to purchase these components... well you have to use a little common sense. You said yourself that it may be hard to get her to agree to the added expense of an LCD monitor. If she might get mad at you for spending an extra $200 of an LCD, then imagine what's she's going to do when you blow $1200 worth of processor, motherboard, memory and video because water leaked onto it (or because they burned up due to overclocking) and there is no warranty because of this!
Believe me, I understand wanting to play and tweak and all that, but really.. what do you do with your computer that requires you to do all of this? There is a saying that a lot of people tend to forget these days, "Just because you CAN doesn't mean that you SHOULD"
