1080p an issue for now?

You mentioned that you like the LCD picure best (It should look good, especially on HD since the pixels are a lot smaller than plasma pixels). However, you also mentioned that the LCD's may be a bit small; therefore, you're looking at plasmas in the 50 plus inch range. Are you aware that the new LCD's starting to appear for the Christmas shopping season are over 50 inches? If you want an LCD over 50 inches, you should be able to find one now. It will also be 1080p of course.

I cannot agree with the comment above that HD-DVD and Blu-Ray are like DVD-A and SACD. It's apples and oranges. The music formats are fringe products for a fringe market. The video formats are mainstream products directed towards the mass market. And it's not just the TV market. They will also appear in computers as a "new upgrade" to disc drives in order to get consumers to upgrade computers. They will also be directed towards gamers, such as the PS3, which has a Blu-Ray drive. I believe that the X-Box comes with an optional HD-DVD drive. The high rez video formats are going to be mainstream video, computer and gaming products. That's way, way beyond what high rez audio was directed at. The fact that there is room on the discs for high rez/multi-channel audio is a nice benefit that we audiophiles can ride along with if they are used for that purpose.

An important question is do you want to buy now, or can you wait a little bit. The two grand spread between the new LCD's and the plasmas will narrow over the coming year. Last year, the 40 plus inch LCD's first appeared; they were premium priced, now they're quite a bit cheaper. This year it's the 50 plus inch LCD's coming out. Next year it will be 60 inches no doubt. If the past year is any indication, I fully expect that a $5500 50 inch LCD will be $1000 less by April. Further drops in price in the new year will depend upon when newer models come out.

I don't think that 1080p by itself is worth an extra two grand for until there is more source material. A year from now maybe with Blu-Ray and HD-DVD coming on stream, but not at this moment.

A 1080p projector, if its a good one like the Sony SXRD, would be an interesting comparison with a 720p direct view if you have 1080p material. But again, there is not a lot of source material. I don't know which would be the better picture, but the projector would still have the deficiencies that projectors have, such as dimness in off-axis viewing. And reliability. If you get an LCD projector, keep in mind that Consumer Reports have been noting a lot of problems with them. They are almost the only electronic product that they recommend purchasing an extended warranty for.

Saving money for the future might be a good idea. We're very close to the market introduction of SED TV's.