Well, I close on the house tomorrow (yay!) and once I'm moved in, I'll be going to local stores to take a look at some TVs. Based purely on reviews, owner experiences, specs, and price, the Sony KDS-60A3000 is the leader right now. I've basically ruled out flat panels because 50" isn't enough for the room, and 60" flat panel LCDs and plasmas are out of my reach price-wise, leaving rear-projection as the only option. My initial instinct among the RPs was the Samsung LED-based DLP models, but scouring the forums, people are having a lot of first-gen type problems with them, more so than other Samsung models with bulbs. I'll definitely take a look at the Samsung DLP sets in person before making my decision, though.

Getting a new TV means it's also time to upgrade my home theater system. Probably going with an Onkyo TX-SR605 receiver with the Onkyo SKS-HT540 7.1 speaker package. I'll try to give this combo an in-store listen if possible because it gets excellent ratings for movie quality, but average ratings for music. If I don't like the sound, I guess I'll buy speakers piecemeal.

I've also decided I'm not going to take the plunge on an HD-DVD or Blu-Ray player until the format war/pissing contest is over. I realize that feeding my 5 year old DVD player without progressive scan into this system is going to be like putting a Yugo engine in a Ferrari, but the few dual-format players that do exist are way too expensive, and I don't want to take a gamble on one format or another and get burned if I end up on the wrong side of the conflict.