Greg, I've never seen a plasma live up to the hype yet - perhaps the HDTV ones will - it's not an image quality thing so much as a 'source first' issue - i.e. plasmas tend to be quite a bit bigger than regular TVs so the picture is blown up proportionately more, and you can see all the flaws much more clearly.

Personally (and I trust my eyes more than my ears these days ;-) ) I think the current generation LCDs are better at a given res than the plasmas, though the plasmas seem to be available in bigger sizes.

We're thinking about the new Sony 32" HDTV LCD - I have seen it and it is, of those that I've seen, by far the best LCD or Plasma at that size.  It's called (wait while I check) the KDLS32A12 - what a terrible name, typical soulless Sony, but a great screen...

John