I've been thinking about stepping into the world of front projection recently, but what really kills me with my current LCD TV setup is the glowing blacks in a dark room. Can any projector in this price range put out blacks comparable to, say, a Pioneer Kuro (but without "dynamic contrast" and dimming tricks)? I've had no luck finding any locally to demo.

I'm a Kuro owner (PDP-5080HD) and Very particular about black levels
Best I've found for my money is the Epson Home Cinema 1080UB (UltraBlack)

It has a 4000:1 native CR, but with Dynamic Iris enabled its reported to be 50,000:1.

All I know is it is comparable in Black level performance to my 5080 Kuro
when the displays are on with no signal playing (all black screen) in a Totally light controlled bat-cave.

The glow off my plasma maybe even slightly higher then the PJ's projected black,
of course the blacks will rise slightly when whites and other colors are playing simultaneously with deep blacks on screen,
but as you can see the ANSI contrast is still pretty darn good.

http://members.shaw.ca/piomaniac/bib-22.jpg

http://members.shaw.ca/piomaniac/bib-25.jpg

http://members.shaw.ca/piomaniac/bib-26.jpg

more comparison pic's here:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=15261932#post15261932

Now keep in mind that's with a cheap $250 ebay, matt white 1.3 gain screen,
I imagine a High Contrast screen from a better screen maker would be even better.

Probably not. But I have to say that when I was researching projectors I nearly pulled my hair out trying to figure out what I wanted. I was worried about getting something and realizing the black levels were awful or it wasn't bright enough in ambient conditions etc. But I finally decided that I'd never know what I needed or didn't until I made the plunge. So I bought myself an HD65 and I was blown away by the image in both ambient and dark conditions. It does extremely well competing with my sammy LCD in my spare room. Maybe I've just gotten used to ****** black levels but I think so long as you buy a decent unit you'll be pleased with what you see.