I guess you are going a little fast spitting on online retailler.
As an online retailler I don't really appreciate the type of denomination you are using. There is more positive way to advertise your business than calling people ny names. This is unprofessional and shows a very little level of repect to other people's way of doing business. I guess you are not a member of the CEDIA organization otherwise you will probably remember the paragraph 2 of the principles of conduct and ethics.
Now to go back to the original question. If the installation is a concerned, you should definitly not go through on online retailler. The other problem you might be exposed is that the plasma are very fragile units and do not support the transportation if they are mishandled. One example is if the package is dropped straight on the ground, the packaging will not be damaged but the unit can be. If you have signed the paper saying that everything is Ok when receiving the box because the box is mint condition, the freighter will not use his insurance and he will say that the unit was deficient when shipped. The retailler will most likely telling you the reverse: unit was perfect and the freighter damaged it. Quite a battle in perspective. The other issue is also the manufacturer's warranty. Some of the brand will void the warranty if you bought the unit online. One more time, check with your retailler on the warranty and the cost of shipping the unit if it needs to be repaired. So the morale is if you want to go through an online retailler, check with them about their return policy in case of the unit not working properly, most of them will do the exchange for free but some of them will not and will ask you to pay extra.
So if you ask me if you should buy a plasma online, I would say no unless the saving is so substantial that you are willin to pay from your own pocket the repair should anythign happen during the transport. For most of us that is unacceptable.
And by the way the trick about using 5 Coax and a Cat5 is common knowledge for anyone doing installation. If this is what customers are paying to get a professional custom installer, no wonder they are going online. You forgot to mention that if the converter/switcher is integrated in the plasma as suggested, you will have several wires to run from each source or the switcher to the converter. I would say get a pure monitor and a separate scaler, you don't need a custom installer for finding a good one. Keep the switcher/controller away from the plasma and run the necessary wires in between (the recommended coax + cat5). The day the technology is changing you don't have to buy yet another box that will convert to a different standard to be then upconverted to the plasma resolution. You just change the controller and if you have selected a good controller in the first place (meaning upgradeable), most likely you will just have to add a card in the system but that no custom installer will tell you that because they want you to call them back! The separation approach allows you to scale your project and to get the best products in each area and not necessarily the one bundled in the plasma.
