My personal favorites are the Panasonic plasmas. They definitely have the best black levels and color detail. As far as HDTV vs EDTV, we had on display the Panasonic PT-42PD3-P (which is 852x480) next to the PT-42PHD4-P (native 1024x768). Running an analog or non-HD digital signal, the EDTV looks much smoother. Switching over to an HDTV signal, the PT-42PD3-P still looks brighter and more colorful. The loss in HD detail is not noticeable unless you're really up close analyzing sharpness of the images.

Overall, I feel the EDTV set is a better deal, at a much better price point than it's HDTV brother. It reproduces HDTV scaled, but with extraordinary quality.

As far as the IR problem, we use plasma-safe IR repeater systems by AudioPlex. They really work great, no problems with interference to this point.