CWB

as a warrenty tech for sony , mistsubishi , samsung , hitachi and a few other companies i noticed a few years ago that the "larger" crts had a problem with maintaining resolution . some of them right out of the box looked like an old vhs tape running in the slp mode .
loss/lack of detail was at an unacceptable level ... no texture to hair and facial features ... "smeary" looking all around . the 32" (and larger) tubes just did not hold up ... oh sure , the brighness was there but after a few hundred hours it looked like some dog had pissed on the newscasters hair .
i changed a lot of crts due to customer complaints ... these were mostly people with "good eyes" and knew something wasn't quite right .
the fault rested with the electron gun assy ... it lost the ability to do fine control of the three electron beams ... it was like trying to paint a rembrant with a firehose .

all the manufacturers had the same problem . it was so bad that mitsubishi curtailed their large crt operations and focused more on the small crt based projection and dlp projection/flatscreen technologies .
personally , i would be hard pressed to suggest getting a large crt of any make . the 27" (and smaller) crts are ok and hold up . any crt is capable of having pattern burnt into the phosphors

plasma displays have come a long way ... at one time they had a problem that resulted in the picture looking like as described above .

digital light projection systems now have the longevity of the scanning module . the xenon lamps used were very pricey (around 300 USD) , but have come down in price . they do not suffer from "burn" .

lcd matrix projection systems had an inherent failing ... the matrixes used were/are small and after some time of elevated temperature and exposure to the intense light from a xenon source they would start to change ... much as how paint fades with time or the dyes change in color photography . this caused a skewing of the color response .
and yes , it is possible to "burn" a pattern into these types of displays .
if you are going to get one of these , make sure you get the biggest matrix you can ... this disperses the light (energy) over a larger area .

large lcd direct view screens currently show the best improvments/attributes of all the viewing systems available to joe consumer . there is a slight changing of the matrix/dyes over time ... proof of this can be seen on the lcd displays used in various locations that run for untold hours (walmart comes to mind) . for the normal user though this is no more of a problem than the changing of the picture on a crt over the long haul , some are actually more stable .

as was mentioned , go for the progressive scan capabilities ... it beats having to buy something twice .