I know there are a lot of people out there with older xxx projector bought a few years ago who don't have the money to upgrade to any of these new awesome projectors just yet and bulbs (lamps) that are reaching the supposed 'end' of their life.So my question is how many of there are you riding out an original bulb past its OEM time period? Include projector and lamp hours (you might want to include how to reset lamp for your fellow proj owners)

I am at 3,000+ hours on my lamp in eco mode, Image looks great,
I almost just bought a new lamp after mine shut down at 3,000 hours BUT luckily found a post where someone says to just reset the hours with < > and power button for 3 secs. At $300 bucks a pop a lot of us might rather ride out the original bulb for a few 1,000 hours more and then just upgrade projectors rather than spend the money on a bulb. But it would be nice to know what kind of 'real' projector life users are actually getting.
Oh, maybe type of usage is a factor. I use my projector every day turning it on and off an average of 1-3 and as much as 5 times a day on weekends and average of 2-4 hours.

In short:
Mitsubishi HD1000u - 3,0000+ hours on original bulb - used daily 2-4 hours

Running a lamp beyond its rated life is fairly common, provided the lamp actually makes it that far. Some do, some fail early. But there is no reason, other than dramatically reduced output, not to continue to use it until it fails.

Now, resetting the lamp hours varies from make/model but the procedure for your model is what you read.

Reset of the lamp operation time
Plug in the power cord and reset the lamp operation time by
holding down the <, >, and POWER buttons on the control
panel at the same time about three seconds.

Run it until picture is unbearably dim or it just quits.

Run it as long as it is watchable... You do not confuse. Pow pow!!!

agree with jake....... Run it as long as you can. Nowadays lamp are fairly cheap to find i know one source Projector Lamps World (http://www.projectorlampsworld.com/) Very Reliable guys.

I reset my Sharp pg A10x several months ago after the warning came on and wouldn't let it fire up (3000 hours? eco?)
PJ is not worth cost of a new bulb

I read somewhere that using a bulb past the recommended hours may result in the bulb exploding, ruining the PJ. Any truth to this?

I have a Panny PTAE2000U with approx. 1,250 hours (supposedly 2,000 hours is the max.) Always used in economy mode.