Edit: 
Sorry a little bit of a tough read, I ended spending a lot more time on this post than I intended originally, so you get to live with the spelling/grammar errors, wife’s on my case to pay attention to the family 
Bang for the buck Plasma’s are far superior, I literally spnt years looking at tv’s finally settled on a Panasonic G15 (same as a G10 which is easier to find) There is some truth to Plasma’s being not quite as good as LCD is a room with windows and tons of lighting, but really it only effects the tv, if the light is directly reflecting into your sight line, So my room is rather bright, but the only window that is directly behind me as I’m sitting in front of the TV affects my view, I took care of that with some curtain, I have a big sliding glass window with window on top of that, and 7′ of window on left side of the TV as I sit, open everything up on a sunny day and there are zero issues seeing a perfect picture.
Though it may not be as big of an issue with the newer LCD’s the off angle viewing is as perfect as if you were in front of it, I can’t say that for our cheaper Vizio LCD.
Today’s plasmas are more energy efficient that previous generations, last I heard ballpark is $30 more a year to run a Plasma, I can accept that for the better quality picture.
IMHO it all depends on how picky you are, me I want the single best choice for my money, and Plasma’s have superior contrast levels and are better for fast action moving scenes, that LCD, Truth be told day to day I’d be hard pressure unless they were side by side to ever notice the difference between our LCD and the Plasma. I also had to have a 1080p, for no real other reason that it would bug me to have anything less, again truth be told 42 and under “they” say you can’t tell a difference, I’m not sure either way, but I know it would bug me if I had my Bluray hooked up, that is capable of putting out a true 1080p to a 720p tv, But as of today HD TV comes in 720P quality some in theory the 1080 isn’t going to give you any more quality unless you had a higher resolution (like bluray)
I have to say for whatever reason, plasma’s don’t show as well in the showroom, I suspect it’s something to do with signal quality (same signal split 100 different ways, somehow compromises pic quality, and plasma’s seem to be more effected, I do have to say a real side by side comparison overall quality wise here at home the plasma’s blows away the LCD of ours, though I don’t think it’s too fair of a comparison, the LCD was a cheaper model, and the plasma is on the upper end. Still honestly day to day I don’t notice it as much as you would think
I also don’t like or buy the 60/120/240 hz hype, it’s software acceleration, physically your 120/240hz tv’s are identicle (in cases I’ve looked into) to a 60hz LCD with the software acceleration off. Now my LCD had a 5ms pixel speed so it takes a pixel 5ms to switch and change colors, that is a big key to reducing blur, but my plasma is something like .01 ms. Again, unless I put them side by side, I’d doubt I notice the difference, somewhere in my head if I do see some blur I wonder if it’s the tv of the quality of the video.
All in all, spend some time looking at them and buy what you really like, benchrace and compare all you want, you gotta live with it, the new LED LCD tv’s look sharp, higher end LCD’s also look great.
Anyways That’s how I understand it, I’m no video file, no salesmen or tv pro, just what I’ve figured over the years, and I could quite possibably be wrong on some aspects. (not on plasma being superior though 
)
I looked long and hard at the 50inch 720p version of my tv, I figured if I went far enough to spend $700, may as well spend $1100 on the one I really want. I’ve seen 50 inch Panasonic plasma’s (720p) down to $619, pretty darn good and tempting. 
Check out slickdeals.net for price shopping (use forum searchs like “panasonic plasma”) to find out what the real prices deals are I know I din’t get the deal of the year on mine, but I know I did far better than most, and I wanted to buy mine locally, versus getting one shipped.
