I’ve seen arguments both for and against using just one screen, and they all make sense in their respective contexts. Let me add my own take.
On my main machine, an early-2008 Mac Pro, I use two 30-inch Dell UltraSharp 3008WFP, the main screen directly in front of me and the second one off to the right at an angle. I use the main screen for all “active” tasks, such as a web browser, a spreadsheet, a document, an email I’m writing etc. and the secondary screen for “passive” tasks, like my email inbox, Twitter, iTunes etc. That way what I’m working on is always right in front of me, but I can easily catch a glimpse of other, non-essential stuff on the secondary screen if I want to (I know, distractions, focus and all; deal with it). But where the secondary screen really comes in handy is when I’m writing and, above all, for development.
More often than not, when I’m writing something, I want to refer to various sources of information without having to switch away from my editor. For example, while I’m writing this blog post directly in WordPress on my main screen, I have a Safari window with a couple of tabs open on the second screen where I can refer to the posts I linked to in the first paragraph of this post. I can even switch between the tabs in that window without switching focus away from the window I’m editing in by holding down the ⌘ key while clicking a tab. Bet you didn’t know that 
But where a second screen is nothing less than essential to me is when developing. If I’m developing a website, I use the secondary screen for the preview windows. With a tool like LiveReload I don’t even have to manually switch to the preview window to reload, it just happens automatically. Huge time saver. If I’m in Xcode, I use the secondary screen for referring to the documentation. Sure, I could switch back and forth between the main Xcode window and the documentation, but that gets old incredibly fast. And it adds friction to my workflow. Not much, but since I refer to the documentation probably hundreds of times a day (I’m just starting out developing in Xcode), it adds up over the course of a day.
And while we’re on the topic of Xcode: Sure, you can work in Xcode on an 11- or 13-inch screen, I’ve done it myself. But the benefits of a 30-inch screen at 2560×1600 pixels cannot be understated, especially with Xcode 4 where you can have two editors side-by-side (e.g. one with the header file and the other with the implementation file, or for comparing two versions of the same file), which is incredibly useful.
Bottom line: If and how much you’ll benefit from a second screen depends entirely on the type of work you do and your personal work style. For a lot of the stuff I do a second screen is indispensable. Frankly, I’m having a hard time coming up with scenarios where a second screen would not be useful some way or another. That said, two screens – especially two very large ones – do have some drawbacks: Twice the desk space, twice the power consumption, twice the heat emission, twice the cost. And yes, depending on how you use the second screen, it can be a distraction. But that’s not the screen’s fault. And while I’d like to get by on a single monitor, the second one is just too damn useful for the type of work I do. YMMV, of course.
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