16:9 screen ratios are useless in any size less than a 28 inch screen, not enough height to do any useful work (they were designed for TVs to let them display wide screen films).
Personally, I LOVE the 16:9 screens that Lenovo put on the T510 and L530 ThinkPads. They are 1600x900 pixels, not the 1366x768 junk, that really is pretty useless. You do need to watch the options, and get the right thing. Panorama works well with them.
FWIW, my sister has a 16:9, 23 inch, LG screen, that is 2560x1440 pixels (or something like that). I haven't seen one of them, on the market, for a long time. Too bad, because it looks great.
As for a "retro" ThinkPad, I would watch the specs, very carefully. My bet is that they only LOOK like an old IBM ThinkPad, but contain modern, too smart for it's own good, electronics.