Sorry, but with regards to video quality, you do get what you pay for. Best advise I can give you is to find someone with a HT that utilizes a mid-high end projector set up, light controlled room and properly calibrated. Only you can determine what looks good to you, much like audio.
The picture my Sony VPL 95 throws up on a 96" wide 2.35 screen is better than my 55" panny plasma, by far. But, it is in a light controlled room and I calibrate it with a meter and software. There's no way you can compare the calibration you get from a DVD and basic display controls than what you get using software and a meter to get a nice flat grey scale, gamma and gamut. I use a DVDO Edge for the Plasma and a Lumagen XS for the projector, and I have calibrated both. The XS definitely has an advantage over the Edge as well.
It always baffles me how some folks can justify spending upwards of twenty grand (or more) on audio in a tiny living room, with massive speakers and subs dwarfing a little TV, then go on to whine about spending five grand on the video portion of their A/V system.
