That XBR3 is a great set- it has 3 HDMI inputs too! SonyStyle is charging $4600 for that one now
You can get slightly better contrast ratio and blacks on a plasma, but I've got the first gen 40" XBR Bravia and despite just one HDMI input, it's a great TV with great picture, especially from a 1080i source or Blu-Ray DVD.
Side note- better TVs show just how terrible some low grade input signals are, such as from analog cable (even the so-called digital channels 2-120 are analog). Some networks, such as Sci-Fi in analog are almost unwatchable because their programming includes many dark or night time scenes.
JV