There is no doubt in my mind that Plasma TV's give a better picture over LCD especially when watching an SD source. With an SD source the picture feels more "organic" to me where as an LCD has that digital pixelated look to it. To be honest if your only going to be watching SD video and want quality then buy a 32" sony CRT TV from ebay for £20!LOL

Now I actually bought an LCD over the Plasma but this was nothing to do with picture quality. The reasons I did were because LCD's are ligher, generate less heat and of course are more engery efficient. I like TV but the picture quality is not a massive thing for me etc.

Also my gut feeling is that LCD's are probably more reliable than Plasma's but I never bothered to research if this was correct or not - I can't be doing with having to be home for swap out's etc.

As for 1080p or 720p...personally I think 1080p is over rated. Myself and the missus compared some video 1080p/720p, AVI upscaled to 720p on our 46" LCD and there was not enough difference for us to be really bothered.