Also, concerning the under $700 37" plasmas, 1080p, the only one I could find that even looked halfway decent was the Panasonic S1 model, but the S1s suffer from a greenish overcast that can't be adjusted out. Reported by cnet and by my own observations.
Taking ClubNeon's advice, I turned the backlight adjustment down from 8 to 5 and there is a big improvement of the black levels. Particularly the upper and lower black bars. They are black now instead of a dark grey.
Can't do anything about the viewing angle, but it only affects one seating position out of 7. Not too bad. At, least it's not where I sit. lol.
