Buy Replacement Lamp or Save for New 1080p PJ?

[audiofox]

The engineer in me tells me that I should have a backup PJ lamp for my Panny PT-AE900U "just in case" and for the eventual replacement need. However, since the lamps are $300 plus, I am wondering if I should just stick the money in the savings account and replace the PJ with a 1080p model when the lamp fails. I only have about 300 hours on the lamp now (it only gets used at night 2-3 days per week, since I don't have a light controlled HT room and infinite time to watch movies), so I have a couple of years before I need to worry about this. By then, I expect that there will be several cost competitive 1080p PJ models to choose from. My gut is to not get anything, but I also don't want to have to scramble to get a lamp if the current one fails prematurely. Opinions?

 

[goodman]

After mulling over the same question for months and months, I bought a new PJ lamp in January just before the recommended 1900 hours arrived. There was no problem with availability for my five year-old Sharpvision and the bulb arrived direct from Japan in about five days (Yes, I was an early adopter of 720P and paid a lot for the priviledge).
I figured it this way: A PJ lamp lasts me nearly five years. Within that time, 1080P PJs will improve, HDMI 1.3 will arrive, and prices will come down (I don't have to be an early adopter all of the time).
With only 300 hours on your Panasonic, there is really no rush at all to go out and buy a spare lamp. Just sock the money away, add some cash from time to time and enjoy the Panny.