Rigid fork, try to find some Ritchey : the frame was drawn for that forks.
But for suspension, Pace is the better choice : in France, the Merlin was sold with the pace and their microcelular bumpers work fine with the titanium feelings.
New and old, im fairly impartial but i would still say keep the 93. Get a proper fork on it though, you dont want a backbreaking rigid fork or no early 90s crap (im starting to think im on the wrong site )
Hi there, i have two exact bikes like yours here. My "modern" frame is my everyday bike till this day, and its been through 3 groupsets during all these years. Currently its on XTR M9000 11 speed 2x11, with Hadley hubs and Thomson titanium/masterpiece hardware. I swapped white magura durin 2011 fork with a newer Durin black 2012 fork found new at a local shop last year. It's a very nice looking bike actually, and i still love it like the on my first ride, perfect for long climbing days and technical xc... Previous XTR 10sp 980 groupset and older magura fork are now on a merlin x-works full suspended frame that i'm not using anymore since i got a Kingdom Vendetta xfs bike for trail days... And my '93 titanium is on a full XTR M900 groupset, black XTR seatpost included. Black Logic fork, ritchey megabyte tyres, syncros 1" headset and stem, Merlin Ti bars and flite carbon saddle.