All I can add is my ownership experience and my great eye sight. I have owned a CRT 65" MITS, it was great for movies. I then owned a Sony 60 inch SXRD. It had better overall PQ than the mits on just about everything and had less pixel problems with sports. Of course some people are quick to jump on the tv for pixeling during sports when in reality it can be the broadcast signal itself. I have found that 1080i signals like CBS uses for college and pro sports are much more pixel prone than ABC's 720p resolution choice. In fact I never saw a single pixel on my Mits or SXRD when watching sports broadcast in 720p. So its not always the tv's fault like so many would have you believe. Anyways, onward here. My next HDTV was a vizio 37 inch LCD for the master bedroom. All in all I couldnt tell much difference in the SXRD and the Vizio LCD on PQ or pixel problems. Now, with all this said, I loved every single one of those TV's, I thought they were all great TV's, especially for the price I paid for them at the time. I still have the vizio in the bedroom and as long as it keeps running I'll just keep it. The mits burned in the sides because we ran too much 4:3 content and I hated stretching the picture because it looked so unnatural. The SXRD went thru 4 lamps and finally suffered the green blob. So, I now have a Samsung PN596500D, 3D/Smart tv. I could do without the 3D, to me its basically useless and I'll never buy another 3D unless I have no other choice. The smart TV would be great if I lived in an area where we could get faster speeds than DSL 1.5mb.....slow slow slow....hard to buffer anything at that speed. So, onto the Samsung Plasma I now own. Hands down, no competition its by far the best HDTV I have ever owned. PQ is out of this world good! We love the tv. We have lots of windows and lots of ambient light. Still, the plasma does not reflect as badly as some would say and we work during the day so the tv doesnt get used much then. But at night...oh my Gosh.....the monster comes out to play! WOW what a picture....and the sports, well it doesnt matter what the resolution is, 1080i, 720p, it all looks spectacular!
We bought our plasma from Best buy 2 years ago. I remember seeing the newer LCDs being promoted by the store but for me to it was a best buy employee who suggested I take a hard look at the plasma sets. I did not want burn in problems. After my mits set burned in, I never wanted that problem anymore. However, I read up about how plasma had fixed most of the burn in issues. After comparing the PQ in the store, I became very heavily interested in the plasma's. Like so many have said, in the store it can be challenging to choose sets even if they are side by side. I asked the sales reps if I could play with the remotes and they were ok with it. I began resetting the tv's to more normal settings for viewing. At first they were a little dark but as your eyes adjust it all comes back up into focus for you. Straight on I could tell the plasmas just had a deeper more detailed picture. I then performed a test I had heard people talking about on here concerning viewing angles. As I began to move to the side of the sets I noticed the LCD sets begin to turn white and unfocused. The farther I moved the worse it got. If this were my living room, someone sitting on our couch or loveseat located on the side walls of the living room would not even be able to watch the LCD sets! All the while the plasma sets never lost anything. I could walk up to the wall, almost on a parallel plane with the tvs on the wall and the plasmas still held strong. With a plasma, you can watch it clean and clear until you actually pass the set and go behind it. I was amazed at its ability to keep the same PQ no matter where I stood. At this point it was just a choice of Samsung or Panasonic? Which plasma should I take home? I know folks have their own opinions and I respect those, but for me I just had to go with the one that my eyes told me was the best. In my case the samsung set had a little better PQ than the Panasonics I saw. In the end, regardless of the brand, to me the plasma technology stood out for its superior performance and for the bang for buck. The LCD's I was comparing the Plasmas to were also $4,000 tvs while the plasmas were all running in the $1,600 range.
So, if you have'nt figured me out by now, I prefer Plasma for performance, price and longevity. (proven long term product)