For me with questions like that, it always comes down to, "what would I notice more for the extra money?"... i.e. let's say the top of the line set costs $2k more than the other set you think you'd be happy with, but are not sure.
I have a friend going through this now... he wants to get a new Pio Plasma that runs about $5,500. His alternative is to get an LCD RP TV for about $2,500 (both TVs he's looking at are big)
This makes up his entire HT budget for the year... His audio system right now is quite meager... old Klipsch tower speakers with a single woofer & tweeter, no center channel, no surrounds, and a decent sub. My question to him was... if you save 3K on the TV, think about what you could do to the rest of the system. Entirely new speakers plus a receiver if you shop right.. once he started thinking of it that way, he realized it'd be hard to get $3k worth of extra quality from the Pio that would outmatch the effect of completely replacing his entire current audio system.
Like JohnK said, it's comes down completely to personal choice, but you might ask yourself a question like the one above to help line up your choices.
Jason
