Television and Home Theater

I have a Toshiba TV (42HXP95) that will be 3 years old the end of November. This week it developed a fine line (violet) on the right side of the screen that runs about half way down. The extended warranty is gone and the dealer was not very helpful. I cannot believe an almost $3,000 TV is bad in less then 3 years. Any one else have problems like this with their plasma's?

I've seen a lot of people discussing this problem on their forums-- it's the issue where a television has a self-diagnosing system that includes a blink (commonly the Sony models) that flashes whenever the tv detects that it may have an error.  

Can anyone give me any feedback about the quality between the Panasonic model CT27G5B (Sept. 2000) and the Quasar model SP2723B1 (Nov. 2000) TV ?  The Quasar has an s-video port in back and the Panasonic doesn't.  Other than that they are very similar.  I believe they were both built by the same company.  I have a chance to buy one or the other for $55 and wondered if either had any prominent issues.