I think that governments in Europe mandated that the companies making TV/video monitors had to have Scart connectors, but in the US companies hate to be told to do anything by the government :-)
Might have something to do with the lower resolutions of NTSC monitors. RGB connectors on expensive TVs disappeared after S-video conectors came out. My XBR Sony has RGB but no S-video :-(
The transcoder solution looks like it would work with 4000, 3000, and maybe 1200s, but not a CDTV,600 or 500. You can get VGA boards for the 2000, so that would work.