Why does everyone use 2¼" boards ...

FIDE championships are usually(no larger than) 3.75" pieces with a 1.7" base and a 2-1/4" board.  Here's the set from this year's Sinquefield cup.  Tournament sets aren't gonna ever be much larger, usually maybe, a touch smaller.

  http://www.houseofstaunton.com/the-2014-sinquefield-cup-commemorative-chess-set.html

Size doesn't matter.  Especially if you are playing blindfold or the lights are out.  Personally, I prefer the set from the Harry Potter movie.

Actually, DGT lists the size of their e-boards as 5.5 cm (2.165"), in between a 2-1/8" and 2-1/4" board, but closer to the 2-1/8". If 1.7" is correct for the diameter of the king in the DGT Timeless set (DGT doesn't specify on their website), that works out to a scaling factor 78.5%. 

I said 'usually no larger than'.  The sinquefield cup was played with a 3.75" king and a 2-1/4" board

the official FIDE world championship chess board actually has 2" squares.

Good info Frank.! Let me just get the facts straight here. The FIDE over priced set in the World Championship is actually played on a 2 inch Maple & Walnut board? Please correct me if I am wrong here. The Maple & Walnut Board is a Timeless Classic Board IMO regardless of square size.

It's Rosewood/Maple, square size 50mm, ie 2"

http://www.regencychess.co.uk/world-chess-rosewood-and-maple-chess-board-197-inches-p-364.html

In general, I get the impression the 2.25" standard is mostly a US thing. 55mm seems the most common size in Europe, w/ the championship board being even smaller than that.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but DGT is the only company currently offering e-boards. And the only size listed on their website is 5.5cm (2.165"), which is closest to a 2-1/8" board. So, if the tournament/match is using an e-board, it's probably a DGT.

For some reason, U.S. Vendors selling this board insist on listing it as a 2.25", perhaps to conform to the USCF standard.

Bottom line, if you have a set and board to match, and you like the way it looks and plays, then the details are incidental.

They didn't use a DGT board in the recent FIDE World Chess Championship in Sochi. They used the "Official FIDE Chess Set" ...

http://fidechessset.com/shop

... which includes that board that Frank linked to. Here's a picture of it from the actual match:

It has 50mm squares (1.97").

Those pieces are not only ugly as homemade shoes (not as ugly as the inexplicably popular "DGT Timeless" pieces, but that isn't saying much), but they are comically overpriced as well. And for the amount of money they want for them, you'd think they could at least be bothered to give some specifications such as weight, type of wood, base diameter and height of each piece, and so on.

That board is overpriced for a 2" veneer board too. That basic type of board is about $75 or less online any day of the week.

I recently got this HoS Dubrovnik set (3.75" height, 1.75" base) with a 2.375" board. Do you guys think the board is too big or not?

Here is a picture:

1.75" king base is perfect for a 2.25" board (78%), but a 2.375" board falls into the correct range too, according to the USCF guideline that was posted earlier:

"The guideline for determining the proper square size for a Staunton chess set is that the king should occupy around [emphasis added] 78 percent of the square... An acceptable square size may be up to 1/8 inch larger than this number, but not smaller ..."

So 78% would be a 2.25" square size, and your 2.375" board is 1/8" larger than that (74%), which is "an acceptable square size".

It looks fine to me. On the other hand, the common practice of using 1.5" base kings on 2.25" boards (67%) is a bit too spread out for my liking.

Yes, I like slightly bigger board size. It is better than a crowded one,  such as (http://www.chess.com/forum/view/chess-equipment/my-swell-chess-set).   Though it is mostly a matter of taste. 

They’re made of boxwood, and there are some quite detailed images of the pieces on the web showing measurements (height, base width, relationship to each other and to the Parthenon), but some of them are a bit lo-res to easily read. I didn’t like the set at first but I’ve come to like it, though I’m still iffy about the knight. Interestingly, I prefer the grey head-on view in the designs below, where it looks more powerful and broad shouldered than the final piece. I agree with Ifekali that giving it such a great stare when it doen’t even have eyes is quite a neat feat.

As for price, I guess this is just a reflection of what people have been saying — get a chess set made in the West these days (where I believe these are made) and it’s going to cost more.

That's what I figured: not even ebony. There would be some justification for the price if the black pieces were made from ebony, though for $320 there are plenty of options for ebony sets that actually look refined and elegant, like the real Staunton sets were, rather than crude amateur hour pieces.

For basic, utilitarian wooden pieces, I'd much rather have the ones discussed in this thread:

http://www.chess.com/forum/view/chess-equipment/chesscafe-special-chess-set-in-stock

About 10% of the price, and they look better to boot (a classic, long-standard tournament design).

I can see why they like to show those knights from the front view; from the side they look like someone cut out their throats. Since they look like a partially butchered or eaten-by-wolves horse carcass, maybe they are supposed to be "zombie knights"?

Why do you think these were made anywhere other than India?

IT'S TIME FOR FIDE TO UPDATE THEIR GUIDELINES.

Here's a dimensional drawing of the new official FIDE chess set:

From the diagram, we notice that the diameter of the king is 39mm, and the diameter of the pawn is 30mm. Since the official FIDE chess board has 50mm squares, that means that the scaling factor for the king is exactly 78% (39mm/50mm), and the scaling factor for the pawn is 60%. But wait, doesn't the FIDE guideline call for a 50% scaling factor (or "four pawns to a square")? Apparently, their "official" chess set doesn't quite meet this spec.

Don't get me wrong, I actually prefer a larger diameter pawn. In my scaling system, where two pawns fit diagonally inside the square, works out to a scaling factor of 58.6%, slightly smaller than the official FIDE pawn. Maybe it's time for FIDE to revisit their guidelines, and provide a range for the pawn, as they do with the king.

I propose that FIDE change their guideline for the pawn size to specify a range from 50% to 60% the size of the square.

Because they're made by Studio Ann Carlton, who, as far as I know, still make their own theme sets. The pricing then would seem about right, when you consider the cost of a NOJ set. But I couldn’t find anything to confirm it one way or the other. I’d like to hear from someone who has played with this set, because I suspect the pieces may be really nice to hold.

The Chess Cafe set doesn’t do it for me. I like either a basic stylised knight or a well made knight (as per Jaques or Ayres sets), but the in-between knights like in the set you linked to just look cheap to me. That said, I’m also not a fan of those knights with extra detailed long flowing manes and upright ears and the like. Nice carving skills, but to me the knights just look out of place when all the other pieces are simple designs.

As for the eaten-out side view, it’s apparently based on a horse’s hoof, which I find quite clever.

Well, yes, but the size of the square on the board can be from 5cm to 6.5cm, so the pawns in this set are fine, and the king's base also falls within FIDE guidelines, being more than 40 per cent of its height.

The knight in the "ChessCafe set" (which is actually a USCF set originally, and over the past 15 years has been sold by various retailers, including House of Staunton, who not surprisingly, charges twice or more what everyone else has ever charged for it), is a familiar classic/standard, given that it's the same knight as in the USCF plastic "Club Special", which has been the de facto tournament standard since at least the early 1970s, and was based on the French Lardy design, which is even older:

At the top is a Lardy set from the late 1950s, in the middle is the meat and potatoes of tournament chess sets since at least the early '70s: the USCF "Club Special", and on the bottom is the boxwood version of the USCF "Club Special", originally sold through the USCF store for $25 about 15 years ago, and sold by practically everyone else at various times since (that particular picture is from House of Staunton).

So while there is nothing special about the design of that knight, at least it's paid its dues, and it doesn't look like its throat/neck has been ripped out by wild dogs ...

... or like it was cut out of a board with a jigsaw and then haphazardly sanded here and there.

I'd be surprised if they were actually manufactured in the UK.

I don't. It doesn't look anything like a horse's hoof, and why would anyone want a knight to look like some unholy conflation of a horse head and a hoof anyway? Can we make the base of the bishop look like a big toe?

That is easily the ugliest knight I've ever seen, and that includes some very crude and "artistically challenged" homemade ones on YouTube.