I almost want to do another resolution poll. I'm really curious how common 1024x768 is anymore. Many computers at the end of the CRT days were switching over to 19" screens, which work great on 1280x1024. As of the LCD days, especially fairly recently, 19" - 21" screens are pretty standard, giving most systems resolutions significantly higher than 1024x768, such as 1440x900 or even 1680x1050.
With LCDs, working in the native resolution is very important! The only LCDs that are 1024x768 will be 17" 4:3 models, and perhaps some 19" 4:3s. Even my second monitor, a 17" LCD, has a native resolution of 1280x1024 and it's a very low-quality monitor.
To me, this almost looks like 1024x768 is starting to become obsolete and therefore maybe ought to not be the standard in the near future. As the world moves to widescreen, perhaps 1440x900 or 1280x800 ought to become closer to a new standard.
That being said, 1024x768 websites are very functional on nearly every screen size and will probably be around for a long time until nearly all of these monitors disappear from the world.
I'm a fan of being able to design by ratio whenever possible. In the LBT game I'm coding, the resolution dictates the scale of every 2d graphic in the game. The position and size of every 2d image are all percents and ratios and scales beautifully, looking the same, no matter the resolution.
