For what it's worth, I'll second what everyone above says about the Pioneers. The angels smiled on me last week when the on/off switch on my Sony 34" CRT TV went bad... and since I wasn't going to haul that 250 pound boat anchor to a repair shop... I gave it away as is.
I'd been looking at the Pioneer plasma's for months, so my decision was already made that when the Sony went, I'd get the Pioneer. Because of size restrictions, I got the 42" Pioneer 950HD, which is 720P.
I've read many reviews of Plasma's and LCD sets, where the reviews say the Sony CRT set still has the best picture quality. I now realize that's a bunch of bunk. Both TV and DVD quality on the 720P Pioneer is far superior to my old 1080P Sony CRT set.