I would go with an LCD but they are more expensive. I had the same dilema as you a couple of months ago and did a little research. Plasma is much cheaper then LCD and that's because they don't last as long. After about two years plasmas will start to fade and the picture will gradually become darker and darker until you will not be able to see anything on the screen. This is because plasmas work by exciting gasses trapped in little tiny bubbles and the collective of those tiny gass bubbles make up your screen. Because of this plasmas can very easiily burn in (about about 20~30 minutes), very noisey because of the fans needed to cool the screen down and consume too much electricity because of the sheer number of gas bubbles that need to be manipulated.
LCD on the other hand is very expensive but it will last you practically forever. When your LCD screen goes dead all you have to do is change the light panel in the back (~$200 USD) and you are good as new. Panasonic and Samsung said they have broken the current LCD barrier and they are prioducing LCD screens with a size of 70 inces. Hopefully this will push the price down for smaller LCD TVs.
If you are looking for something stylish, durable and that will get your the most for your money I would go with a Sony XBR series TV (Rear Projection LCD)
http://www.sonystyle.com/is-bin/INTE...ection&Dept=tv Hope this helped...