Even if they didn't draw specifically for CRT output, I imagine the process to have been iterative -- if something ended up looking bad on end-user output devic

Even if they didn't draw specifically for CRT output, I imagine the process to have been iterative -- if something ended up looking bad on end-user output devices, they would make tweaks until the product looked good enough on CRTs. Or are you suggesting that artists of that era never looked at their art on CRTs at all?