Definitely agree on the Zenith's from the 90's. I worked for a hotel company that bought 100's of them over a six month period about 94 and I spent the next couple of years hauling dozens of them to the local Zenith dealer (who literally stayed in business doing warranty work). Not all the tv's went bad, but I swear every remote did. I learned they had bad solder joints and I would take home a sack full at a time and fix them myself to save us some money on them.

A couple of other things to avoid on any brand set from that time period. First, a practice called tiering started with the makers around the late 80's. The low tier was the cheapest quality and sold at Walmart and Sams. Stores like Best Buy and HH Gregg got mostly middle tier and some top tier. Specialty stores and the few old dealers left got top tier. If there's anyway you can find out where it was sold, avoid the Walmart versions.

Second, a number of stores specialize in "Factory Serviced" sets. These were sets returned from other stores with problems and sent to a reconditioning facility, which supposedly repaired them like new. I know from personal and business experience that they were a real crap shoot and often wern't worth buying. They usually had a sticker on the back saying "Reconditioned" or many of them had a "R" heat stamped into the plastic backs.