Seeing how this thread just keeps going and going, here are some other points to ponder.
60,000 hrs for plasma - quite a number of years ago, and I do not remember which brand did this, someone had to put a number of plasma's through accelerated testing for military purposes. This is where the 60,000 hr life span came from. There is a white paper out there about this. This number represents an expected life, and may not mean anything when looking at cheaper sets today.
Just in case it still is valid, lets look at how long that really is.
Average family with kids, between kids watching after school and parents after kids are in bed, 8 hours per day X 7, add extra 3 hours X 2 days for weekends where TV might be on for cartoons in the morning and you have 62 hours per week. X 52 weeks = 3224 hr per year. 60,000/3224 = 18.61 years of use. Even if in the real world they only get 30,000 hrs, thats still 9 years of consistant use.
We lived with CRT sets that were typically rated for 10 - 15 years use. So under typical household use we know a plasma should last a resonable amount of time.
I haven't actually read any reports about LCD and how long they should last. What I do know, and it seems to get skipped over a lot, pixel burnout. Our persistant UK poster mentioned that PLasma was too expensive to make, I think that statement holds true for LCD too, there is a ton of waste in the production of LCD (unless something has dramatically changed in the last couple of years). LCD panels are made up of pixels, and they have a tolerance of 4 - 6 burned out pixel depending on the manufacture, any more than that and the panel is garbage (or sold to maxcent?). During a panels life time, pixels will burn out, not may but WILL. These represent tiny blue or red or green dots on your screen. A few on the outer edges may not be a big deal, but get one somewhere in the middle and the moment you notice it, it becomes all you can see. I have viewed older Sharp front projectors that look like they have achne, different coloured dots all over the screen. Lots of LCD monitors out there, look closely and you might find a burned out pixel, now imagine that on your new 42" LCD TV, and how much bigger it will look.
As for repairs, someone mentioned they have tons of Plasmas sitting in a repair shop, I am sure there are just as many LCD's sitting in repair shops too. I was at a service counter for (sorry, no name needed)and behind the counter were huge industrial racks about 10 ft high and at least 30 ft long, filled with lcd panels and lcd projectors. I don't believe one is better than the other when it comes to reliability, buy trusted names and your chances of not getting a lemon are at least better.
To our friend from the UK, you need to get a grip... What Hifi is a nice magazine, but like all A/V mags, keep reading. Another few months from now and something else will be the best. Magazines are a great way to see someone's opinion and possibly narrow down your search to a few choices that you want to actually go and see.
Panasonic plasma's certainly are concidered some of the best out there, we use their commerial (8UK and now 9UK) models in most of our installations. Clean lines, upgradable card based input slots and an excellent picture. There are a few other brands out there that are good too. Remember one other fact, in both LCD and Plasma there are only a few companies that actually make the LCD or plasma panels.
On another note, I think we still have a couple more years before the delivery system catches up with the quality new TV's "need". SD channels can look OK, or awful, but even some HD channels, which are not always delivering HD content, can look terrible too. I don't have HD in my home (yet) as I have a very expensive Pioneer Elite TV that still works and produces a great picture. I do look forward to replacing my set with something HD, because when you have the right set, and are watching something in true HD, it really is spectacular.
I know this doesn't answer the Plasma vs LCD debate, but I think there are enough good points in all the posts in this thread for someone to make up their mind.
Enjoy, it just TV....
Chowhound
Comic Vine
GameFAQs
GameSpot
Giant Bomb
TechRepublic