Also, what came after this era it was either boring (standard x86 PCs) or too complex to easily maintain over decades, e.g. Suns or SGIs with failing [UW]SCSI d

Also, what came after this era it was either boring (standard x86 PCs) or too complex to easily maintain over decades, e.g. Suns or SGIs with failing [UW]SCSI drives that are hard to replace these days.