So 'wheels' complete where pretty new thing still. Mavic Crossmax being the most common, probably as they kicked it off, these are different to your traditional built up wheels of Shimano, some spokes and a rim.
For built up wheels
then as mentioned Mavic X517 being the top XC by them, Spoke some DT Revolutions or equivalent by others and XTR/Hope Ti-Glide/DT/Goldtech/other-fancy-hub
98+ is a bit out of my knowledge for wheels, but these are what tends to get mentioned on here, so I don't really know any top end competing rims.
New stuff had started to come out in 2000 so here the very end of it as a snapshot
https://web.archive.org/web/2000121...tioncycles.com/categories.asp?category=wheels
https://web.archive.org/web/20001018103203/http://merlincycles.co.uk/
You may need to use a flash emulator with older websites...