Congrats on the new purchase! Loved the quote about the wife and her mom thinking you're sitting too close. I think that's about the same distance we sit from my dad's 42" plasma and it looks and feels fine. So I don't see a problem, either. Heck, when I shared a house with one of my brothers, he had a 65" TV and one of the chairs must have been maybe only 8 feet away from the screen, maybe less; sure it was too close, but it's amazing how quickly I got used to it!
I think I'd have bought the 720p, too, with that a 42" and a seating distance of ten feet.
Agreed with what's been said regarding burn-in. I've seen years ago a display at a store that looked like the screen was etched glass and was certainly permanent, but I'm guessing it was heavily abused. My plasma is maybe a year or two newer than that model. I've never had the 'etched glass' type of burn in. I did, however, have the sets own internal, bright neon green "Channel XX" label do a serious case of image retention that was barely viewable mainly on white backgrounds only. Took me about a full year after I got a cable box (which moved the "Channel XX" to a different location) before the slight burn-in went away. But the point is that it went away eventually. And maybe I wouldn't have had the issue in the first place if I had been gentler with the set in its first 100 hours? I dunno. Regardless... I try not to abuse the plasma, just in case. I usually only play videogames for maybe a half-hour at a time, but I've had no permanent burn-in---just retention that goes away after a little regular TV viewing.
