Well...
The 3D plasma arrived about 5 1/2 hours late. The delivery guy gave me some sob story about his partner not showing up, and they had to scramble to find a replacement. In any case, the TV came. Unfortunately, I did not have time to play around too much until Sunday night. And even then, I only had a few minutes to tinker with it. As I know you guys will understand, a few minutes of screwing around with electronics can easily turn into a few hours...or even an all nighter. And since I actually have to do a day job, I did not want to get caught in that trap.
In any case, I had some anxiety about the DVD player since my HDMI cable is about 5 years old, it's pretty long, and snaked behind walls and ceilings. I had read a lot about high speed vs. regular HDMI cables and was worried that my cable would not stand up to passing 1080p video, which is required for 3D. I was relived to see that things worked just fine. I let the HDMI cable carry the video to the display, and used a Toslink optical cable for the audio. I had to tweak some of the audio settings on the DVD to get things to work since my receiver does not do HDMI switching...but at the end of the day, the sound and picture are great, and the 3D ACTUALLY WORKS!!
Next project is to get everything wired up correctly. I needed to buy a component video switcher to handle the Wii since there is only one set of component inputs, and I need two (one for Wii, and the other for the cable box). I also need to get a universal remote. I don't want to start from scratch with the ProntoPro I have now, since I can't seem to find code databases for it, and it would take an enormous investment of time and patience to manually learn and configure the remote. I sprung for a Logitech Harmony 900...from what I read, the setup is more or less idiot-proof, and can be done in a few minutes. I hate that I have this beautiful remote that requires a tech to program.
All in all, the picture is beautiful, and I'm really glad I got this TV.