Having a Plasma is like a having a lawn mower with a 6.0L V12 612hp Ferrari engine.

Its true that a lot of electronic technology becomes obsolete before it wears out, but looking at the dire state of the planet, it may well be that even idiotic human beings will one day be forced to make things primarily for the consumer and not for landfill.
I for one hate the speed of progress (if you call it that). Technology has such a short lifespan that its hard to get even interested in it. Much of the potential enjoyment of owning a new device is eroded by the fcat that you know you'll only have it for a short time before you want something better. After a while it gets more interesting to window shop or read web sites like theInquirer than actually buy anything.
And do we really need all these bloody stupid ports? Its still almost impossible to see the difference between composite video and component, and even less chance between component and HDMI. These so called innovations are just marketing tricks used to part the foolish from their money.
I say way-to-go Panasonic - give us something we can really use - longeveity.

Go on Panasonic, give us a 10 year guarentee and we will believe you. Talk is cheap.

At Costco they have 65in screens down to more normal sizes, and the plasmas almost always look more realistic with more detail.

Example: a nature video they were playing showed an old guy with a white beard talking. On most of the plasma's you could see every single hair in his beard, while on the LCD's you could see the white beard but not each and every hair.

Anyway, give us a 10 year guarentee and I will buy a plasma from you. My money is sitting right here, all you have to do is backup your marketing speak with a real contract and I will buy from you.

I know a number of people who still do not own an lcd or a plasma after factoring the average lifespan of new electronics and cost. My own TV a sony 32" trinitron is already a healthy 18 years old and still going strong. To extend the lifetime of a tv would greatly benefit people (who think) like me. However, in this case, the electronics would likely give out earlier than the panel itself.

Given the high cost of OLED tvs, do you think it's a good idea to put everything on the line for it? Do you think Panasonic should abandon something that the immediate consumer would buy or to cater to the 5% who would be willing to spend a fortune on a small OLED TV that will only be dated extremely quickly anyway?

Yea, in 2013, maybe everyone will shift to the OLED technology and beyond. Certainly, not right now. By then, something better would come out. They always do. Making your points quite useless.

Well, my 16 years old 14" telly is still going strong in my daughter's room. I bought it for use at Uni back in 1992.

We're replacing it with a 19" widescreen LCD TV, not becuase there is anything wrong with it, but simply because we can.

I do agree with your connection comments, as the old telly only has an aerial input!

Lets be honest here can anyone think of someone they know that is using a tv which is more then 10 years old. For that matter can anyone think of a tv they or someone else they know had 10-20 years ago that had Component, HDMI, VGA, DVI or DisplayPort connectors? Put bluntly the concept of a 42 year life span for a tv when technology is currently changing at an exponential rate is just plain stupid and total pointless. 

Hey Panansonic instead of making plasma tv's that last longer so they will be obsolete halfway through their potential life span if the customer is lucky why don't you work on a way to decrease the weight or the amount of heat generated or the amount of power required, you know things that would actually be helpful to the consumer. Honestly given they've now managed to test an OLED screen where all the elements will last atleast 60,000 hours which do you think will be the future big seller?

A. heavy, power hungry, slower responce time, less colorful, longer lasting plasmas.

or

B. lighter, more energy efficient, near instant responce time, better picture quality OLEDs. 

Seems like some analysts are already betting on OLED given atleast one projection I've seen for the period between now and 2013 show both unit shipments and revenues increasing by around 150% over the previous years number every year. 

Oh not to mention there are already groups working on systems far beyond HD which they hope to start using for broadcasting purposes in as little as 7 years. For those that haven't heard of it look up NHK UltraHD, the quick and dirty is 7680 × 4320 with 22.2 surround sound.

I have to say, having looked at many different LCD and plasma TVs, I definitely like the picture on most plasma TVs better. The black is blacker and the colors more vivid. Even 40K-60K hours of life is plenty, especially considering how inexpensive a larger plasma TV is compared to a larger LCD.

The only downside left (aside from cost) is that if a still image is left for too long, it "burns in" into the screen.