I've had a 42" Samsung Plasma for 2 and 1/2 Years now. I'm very happy with it. It's as bright as the day I got it and the quality is great. The viewing angle is perfeect from whatever angle. Fast moving images are fantastic on it (LCD's struggle with fast moving images esp football etc) The colours are very good and the display is very bright.

The life of the plasmas now are very long, so long you won't have to worry about it. It was the very early plasmas that were so so, i.e screen burn and dimming after years. Both of these are no longer a worry.

LCD is good for things like text etc so if you want to plug a PC into it or something then ideal. Also would you be happy with a bright red dot in the middle of the screen when one of the pixels goes (or even worse when it arrives!) most makers won't class this as a fault...

Also the price of a plasma vs LCD, plasma is cheaper. Large LCD's are harder to make, i.e the waste to produce one perfect panel is high.

Go for a HD version of a plasma too and make sure it has HDMI or DVI which supports HDCP (Just look for the HD Ready Logo) and then when sky launches the new HD box plug this in and prepare for all your mates to come round and watch the World Cup in HD!!