Thanks for the advice everyone, I really appreciate it since I'm a novice at this and it's a big investment I don't want to regret later.
Looks like the consensus is stay away from plasma and go LCD or DLP. I have a feeling that I'm going to have to go with DLP though because we have a 19' long family room that opens into the kitchen. So the idea was to get a set that we could still see well if we were in the kitchen making meals, etc. That being said, I was looking at at least a 56" set if not bigger. So I guess that rules LCD out...
I've been working in the television industry for over 15 years.
Hopefully you won't mind a few PM's when I finally narrow down my choices