I forgot to mention that I went and saw the Panny 50" yesterday at Best Buy. It was okay, but nothing special, IMO. The picture still looked "grainy" to me. As always, it could be how they had it hooked up. The salesman actually seemed to know some of what he was talking about, which was refreshing.
They have the TV for the same price as Amazon, but he told me very quickly and confidently that they would "absolutely not" match Amazon's total price (i.e. no tax). I'm not very motivated to get it right away.