Hi Rick,
I actually just installed the Panasonic PT-AE4000 in a new HT build for my in-laws (no Axioms - though I tried!). I am a noob when it comes to projectors and I know nothing about the Epson, but if there's any specific questions I can answer on the Panny feel free to PM me. For what it's worth, here are my initial impressions (on a 120" anamorphic Stewart Firehawk screen) :

- when 1st ceiling mounted, it was tough to find the menu item to flip the image cuz the whole menu was upside down too. That was actually a laugh for the 1st 10 minutes!

- image quality is good, but does suffer when ambient light increases too much. We knew that going in, but we also have good control of the lighting conditions

- with ambient light low, image quality is great - really nice colour - although black levels/detail still don't compare favourably with a good plasma

- fan noise is very quiet in eco mode, I find it too loud if not in eco-mode (projector is ceiling mounted between 2 rows of seating)

- I love the feature of it automatically detecting the input signal and switching between 16:9 and anamorphic settings. That is just too cool when you switch from the movie menu to the actual movie and 10 seconds later the whole image zooms to fill the screen without touching a button!

- annoyed that it does not seem to have discrete power codes and input selection codes available for the Harmony, but I am working on this with Logitech support, so it might be resolvable

- black casing looks very nice IMHO

- user guide sucks at describing what the features actually do - i am still figuring stuff out by trial and error 3 weeks later

- not specific to the Panny, but I have learned to try and avoid ceiling mounting in a basement if possible due to floor joist vibrations when there's heavy footed walkers (or my kids!) upstairs, though that can have added artistic impressions to actions sequences with the whole image shaking along

Cheers,


Dan
On-Wall M5HP LCR, QS8 & EP500 in 7.1