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There are plenty of bad CRTs out there. Those "slim fit" CRTs look pretty bad. Also, even the best CRTs can't do a very good job when the contrast is at maximum. Every TV I see in a store is blooming and defocusing from the strain. Even AK favorites like the Chromacolor II would look like crap if they were adjusted to match the brightness of the sets on display at best buy.
I've come to the conclusion that there's no perfect video display. CRTs look excellent when they are adjusted properly and if you are lucky enough to get one with perfect convergence. There's always some geometry error. At high brightness all CRTs lose a lot of focus. They're heavy, big and can't be made bigger than about 40".
The blacks are very good on most modern plasmas (this used to be a serious problem with plasmas). Color saturation is good and they don't suffer from motion blur. You can make them as bright as you want without having the picture go out of focus. Convergence and geometry are always perfect. Plasmas have trouble showing continuous shades (they appear as bands, or as areas of flickering dots). They are also very fragile and they are more complex to repair.
LCDs have most of the same advantages and disadvantages as plasmas, but I find that the colors usually look soft and washed out. They also always suffer from some motion blur. This is much better on the best LCDs, but there are a lot of smaller cheap LCDs out there. LCDs have poor blacks which change with viewing angle. They also have a limited dynamic range which makes it easy to clip the whites if you turn up the contrast too high. LCDs are proven to be very reliable and when the back light wears out, it can (in theory) be replaced.
If you really want the best HDTV you can get, look for a Sony direct view with "super fine pitch". They have much finer phosphor stripes on the CRT than any other TV so they can display better resolution. The CRT is a lot like what you'd find in a professional monitor. I think they have been discontinued, but there are still some in stores at a reduced price. If it doesn't say "super fine pitch" it just has a regular CRT.
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