Line Bleeding or Smearing fixed for 2012?

Line bleed is still an issue, at least it is on my U54, but not bad enough for me to return it.

That rainbow blur effect you describe appears to be a trait some folks are born with seeing unfortunately, most noticeably on DLP displays but also plasmas to some extent. I don't see that effect at all on plasma displays myself.

Don't think anything in the technology will have changed in that respect, but tour best bet might be to go to retail stores and look at different plasma models from the 3 top manufacturers (Panasonic, Samsung, LG) and see if you notice it more or less on different models with varying content.

I can see very slight line bleed on say the green title screen before movie trailers, but only if I really try to look for it, so its not an issue for me - especially with other regular video content.