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I think in reality both systems were capable of a very good picture, with the line structure being visible only on larger screens. Flesh tones were perhaps more accurate with PAL, but the flicker was more obvious.
On broadcast, one thing that hasn’t been mentioned is ghosting, which used to occur when the broadcast signal would bounce off buildings etc and show as images duplicating normally to the right of the actual image. Obviously this wouldn't happen with cable or DVD/LD, but was something we just had to put up with. I think the Japanese invented a way of eliminating ghosting on broadcast TV, but it never reached the UK.
I remember staying in a Motel in Nevada in 1983 and thinking how good the NTSC picture was, but it was the exception, it was quite common to see green tinted faces on US TV sets i watched.
I remember comparing region 1 and region 2 DVD’s back in the day. Here in the UK the player was connected using an RGB SCART plug, the pictures were very good on both. Of course PAL DVDs was sped up from 24 to 25 fps, which is another issue. The flicker was main difference on the Region 2 disks, but in Europe we were used to it.
No flicker today of course as flatscreens don't suffer with it...
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