Would someone please enlighten me as to why the newer video drivers do not use an xorg.conf file and advantages/disadvantages of this feature?

Hardware detection is now done via kernel and/or udev. That includes monitors. mouse, keyboards, graphics etc. It is supposed to be faster and more reliable.

If you use nvidia, you have 3 choices (in antiX).

1. use nv free driver (included in antiX, but no longer in Debian Testing). This is ok for basic stuff, but not that great ie forget playing games. Doesn't need xorg.conf

2. Use free nouveau driver which has replaced nv. This is much better than nv, videos play in full screen for example, games should play well. (Forget heavy 3d though). Doesn't need xorg.conf

3. Proprietry nvidia driver. Non-free but best acceleration. Needs xorg.conf (at least if you use smxi/sgfxi.)

Hope that helps.

That explains it completely.
By the way, the new final iso boots the nouveau grub menu item pefectly with no xorg.conf.

I was pretty sure I could get fullscreen video with the nv driver using"mplayer -vo xv video-file".