Shoutbox

Peripherals that could be useful: scanner, plotter, anything that does graphical stuffs.
As for the workstations:
Processor - AMD Athlon 64 3000+ or better
RAM: As much as you can fit in the motherboard, a couple o' gigs DDR400 should be possible
GFX card: Something my Matrox (they excel at 2D graphics) or by NVidia/ATI (for 3D stuff)
Other components: just get something decent.
The server could also benefit from a fast CPU and huuuuuuuuge memory, but of course it'll need masses of hard disk space. I think a few hundred gig would be a good starting point.
Connect the lot via a nice big 10/100 Ethernet hub (Gigabit if you like), Cat5 UTP/STP is all that's necessary.

And yes, CRTs are much sharper and clearer for graphics work. Make 'em big too