But why!?

Back in September I ordered two of these from Amazon, they came to £127.74 each (Ebuyer had them for an almost identical price). Looking at them now they are £279.99! Why such a price hike!? Has this happened across the board with components or monitors?

There has been a global shortage of LCD panels as production now has to cope with TVs as well as monitors. Since the move to digital TV, the manufacturers are buying up panels for TVs in the expectation that people will buy a new TV, so panels for monitors are in short supply so the price goes up.

We buy the 2233BW and 2443BW at work, both are less than 200€ at the moment. In fact, the 2233BW comes in the same case, by the look of it...

Is the T220 end of life or uses a different type of panel, which now costs more?

To be honest, I've no idea if it's been EOL'd...
A mate wanted an extra screen on his laptop and I recommended the T220 as I think they are really good screens. I looked on Amazon and they had more than doubled in price over the last three/four months and Ebuyer don't stock them anymore....

Damn expensive for a TN panel. I'm sure there is a Dell that is a S-IPS for about £200 or something.