To be fair, I think -Ad- is pretty annoying in his blind recommendation of plasma as an overall technology. I think it can be shown quite easily that Panasonic's current range of full HD plasmas have poor SD compared to last year's range. Last year's Philips LCDs easily beat it for scaling quality, not seen this years 9603 yet, but looking forward to it. Sony W4000 is okay, but it's too sharp, like how the Panny is too soft. Lesser of two evils really. Not a big fan of the 656; can't seem to get colour right on it, and I don't like the Super Clear Panel at all. If Sony sort out the over-sharpness of the W4000 for the new X series later this year than that will be one heck of a set, easily better than the Panasonic plasmas.
The fact is, the main reason Pioneer sets perform better for SD is not because they're plasma but because they actually invested in decent scaling. Hence why Pioneers LCDs should still offer far superior SD to other stuff out there...but they'll only be worth looking at if they sort out Sharp's hideous banding problems.
These days it is only a good idea to compare sets with sets, not LCD with plasma. To that end, I think a technology discussion forum is a poor idea. I think a sticky explaining that in both forums would be a good idea, titled "NO PLASMA VS LCD THREADS PLEASE" or something.
I've been to JL Oxford Street plenty of times, and no set looks good in there.
