LCD vs. Plasma

Actually, I can answer this quite well.

Firstly, Tooker you have that backwards. LCD's blur. Plasmas do not and will never blur. Also plasmas are around the same price as LCDs.

I just bought a plasma for gaming (Panasonic's TH42PX80U for $850 -- but I was lucky to get a good deal. You normally should pay around $1k.) and it's a fan-fucking-tastic plasma for gaming. The Panasonic models are great for gaming. The 2008 LG models I hear are pretty good (2007 are trash). Samsung isn't too shabby either. Pioneer has the best models, but you're going to pay a lot of money for one of those, so Pioneer probably isn't your best bet if you want the best bang for your buck (if you do, I'd consider buying what I bought).

The new plasmas coming out are great, the problem is, there is a lot of misinformation going around about them. Some of the myths going around, used to be true, but are not anymore (like burn-in).

Myth: Plasmas have a limited life span.
Fact: Current plasmas last pretty much as long as LCD's do. You could watch a plasma 4 hours a day, every day, and most would last for 40 years.

Myth: Plasmas suck up a lot of energy.
Fact: Many plasmas are now energy star compliant, and do not use all that much more energy compared to LCDs.

Myth: Plasmas will burn in. That beautiful radar in the bottom of the screen will permanently etch into your screen!
Fact: While there is some merit to this myth, it's pretty exaggerated. Current plasmas are quite resilient to burn in. Most plasmas have an anti-image retention mode which will ever-so-slightly shift pixels that haven't moved too much in the past few minutes to help ease burn-in. Burn in, on my Panasonic set, is said to occur around 10+ hours of a static image on the screen. So, if you like to leave CNN/ESPN/MSNBC on for long periods of time (10+ hours) or you play games where there is a single image (like a radar) that is on the screen for many hours, then going LCD is a better choice. Though, in normal playing and viewing circumstances, this is not an issue.

What could be an issue is something called Image Retention (or IR for short). IR is when you play a game with like a radar or something for awhile and when you turn it off or go to switch back to regular TV, you might see the faint image of the radar still on your screen. This is usually only seen on a completely blank input (black screen), dark room, and your face 1 foot away from the screen. This is completely normal, 100% reversible, and may not even happen much anymore after you break your TV in. IR generally cannot even be seen once you switch back to a TV station or put in a new game. On a normal, resilient screen, that image would be washed away pretty fast. If it doesn't, it's probably a faulty panel which is covered under warranty anyway. When you first buy a Plasma, there is something called a break-in period. Which means, the first 100-200 hours of viewing the TV, you want the brightness and contrast (contrast is called picture on a panasonic set) a little bit lower than normal (40%-ish) if you're playing something with a static image (generally on RPGs, there's not much to worry about since the transitions between battles, towns, etc would be enough to vary the content up for a bit). If you're playing a game without any static images, like NHL08 without the scoreboard on, I doubt it matters what settings you use. If you're truly that concerned about it, whenever you get up to get a drink or take a piss, flip on a tv show with a full screen image until you get back. That would be enough to undue 90% of whatever IR you may or may not have accumulated. I was worried about it at first but I've had Zero problems with IR and I'm not even done with the break-in period. After that, feel free to crank up the settings (as long as it's not in torch mode aka 90% brightness/contrast, you'll be fine).

Honestly I personally will always buy plasma over lcd until the next generation of hdtv's come out (oled or whatever). Most (aware, knowledgeable) plasma owners would say the same thing.

Hope this was useful.

edit: Just to clarify, if you're playing a game without any static images, like NHL08 without the scoreboard on or most RPGs, I doubt it matters what settings you use even if you haven't broken in the TV very much.