Ditto Randy's suggestion to check out
Projector Central. They have a lot of info to consider in selecting a projector including list and reviews of their most highly recommended projectors and most popular models.
I purchased a used NEC 240K and had it for about 2.5 years with no troubles at all. I recently replaced it with the Mitsubishi HD1000 (for a while was rated one of 3 best buys on projector central) and am very pleased with it. It isn't as versitile to place as say the Sanyo Z series or some other popular models, but is fine for my situation.
Unless you are going to go the Blu-ray or HD DVD route I wouldn't recommend going to 1080p as they run around $5000 to get a highly rated model. Excellent 720p models can be had for $1000-1500 and are going to look just about as good as any 1080p model showing standard DVD's or HD TV (which is mostly 720p content). It'll likely be a couple years before there is a fair bit of 1080p content on HD TV and Blu-ray players are a more reasonable price and by then the 1080p projectors will probably be as cheap as the 720p ones are now.
My 2 cents
