Well we all have our opinion (and if you look in some of the other forums like hometheaterspot you will find every point of view!) I would personally say the opposite to John - get a 16:9 HDTV-ready set with a decent stretch mode like Toshiba. And the "problems with regular tv" are related primarily to screen size and the performance of the line doubler and other electronics in the set, nothing to do with HDTV.
I have had HDTV (Hughes E-86) for a year now and it is nothing short of amazing. And we watch just about all regular TV in stretch mode.