There are two main reasons why plasma went away. The majority of buyers are not necessarily looking for high PQ nor are they doing critical viewing on a TV. But this isn't one of the reasons why plasma went away. The first reason, but not the most important reason was that the price wars between plasma and LCD went to the LCD camp. The second, and most important reason had nothing to do with sales, pricing, etc., but it was revealed around 2008 that a by-product of the plasma panel manufacturing process was a power carcinogenic waste product with a long half-life. This was a waste product at the factory, not the actual plasma TV's in the landfill. C&EN journal documented the problem and how the half-life of the carcinogenic waste product was way beyond what the manufacturers were willing to handle in long terms.
To this day that carcinogenic waste product is still around and will be so beyond your grand children's lifetimes. Those plasma panel makers will have that burden of stowing the carcinogenic waste product for a very long and costly time. And with that said, even to this day only Organic LED panels beat plasma. Nothing that Samsung hopes to market can exceed the contrast and black levels of plasma, and certainly not OLED. And while I am looking to buy an OLED, I still have two working plasma TVs in my home that I bought in 2008 and 2009. Only the unit from 2008 has issues and it is squarely on the video input board (3 of 4 HDMI ports are dead).
Long Live The Plasmas!
