Choosing the Perfect Plasma TV: Top Selling Plasma Television Models lists the most popular sets. Panasonic has always been at the top and makes the best Plasma TVs I think. I have two Panasonic plasma TVs and have been very happy with them.
It looks like Pioneer has some popular models and one Samsung.
Even if you are going to buy online I'd look at floor models to see what you like. Something to look out for is that you can tweak a lot of stuff. so the store could make a good plasma set look like crap and make the crappy models look better.
The single most important thing is, no matter what TV you decide to go with, you should follow proper break in to make sure your screen will operate well for its lifetime. You can read my post here that goes over that here
http://www.fohguild.org/forums/gener...tml#post694908
Also one last thing. If you buy it at a place like BestBuy, even if they have it at a discounted marked down price, try asking for a better price. They were asking 2600 for my last TV when the normal price was 2700. I got them to take it down to 2450 or so without much hassle. This was cheaper than any online discount store or any other regular store.