Ed;
You are right about the horizontal deflection circuitry in many of the late generation CRT TVs. The government was pushing for greater efficiency of electronic equipment to reduce power demands on the electric power industry. Most of them changed to LV power supplies that eliminated large power transformers and in turn used the horizontal deflection/HV power supply section as a switching power supply and added multiple secondary windings on the flyback transformer to derive other voltages to supply circuits in the rest of the set. Many sets had remote controls that remained on after the set was turned off and the push was there to reduce that to a flea-power level in the standby mode.
Those late generation CRT TVs can be a real bear to work on. Most of the manufacturers recommended using an isolation transformer with voltage step-down/up capability to aid in troubleshooting and provide some additional protection against electrical shock.
CRTs can hold HV for days and weeks when the set is turned off. There is a recommended way to discharge the CRT HV for each type set before servicing HV circuitry. If someone is not educated in how to safely do this, an appropriate service technician should be called. Many CRTs use a HV to achieve proper focus and that voltage can be around 4-5KV too. CRT screen grid voltages can be around 800-1.5KV. There are many locations in CRT type sets that can give a nasty shock.
One thing about changing from a CRT based set to a modern flat screen set is the difference in the aspect ratio versus the size of images on the new sets. We changed from a 32" CRT set to a flat screen LCD type years ago and found that we had to go up to a 42" wide LCD set to achieve images that had the same size vertical display as the old CRT unit. Count on up-sizing about 31 to 32% in order to still see things the same apparent size on the screen.
Joe
KC5LY
Joseph Strickland