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Growing up in the 80s, there were still plenty of US made RCA and Zenith sets being sold. But they more or less sucked next to the Sony Trinitron. I think they ended up leaving the 80s mostly competing on price, for the low end of the market.
The Trinitron had a brilliant picture with excellent black levels, good geometry, usually good speakers, and great looking colour. The domestic sets (when new) had inferior pictures. I don't know about longevity, but I've seen plenty of Trinitrons hit 20 years old and still look great. The sort of people who leave their TV on for 12 hours a day probably experienced earlier failure.
The other thing is, Sony was cool - they had the Walkman, the CD, the handycam.. they were leaders in high tech. RCA and Zenith were yesterday's news, more associated with grandma's console radio than futuristic electronics.
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