My understanding of the current situation is that good projector bulbs are fragile, only last about 1000 hours, and can cost as much as half the projector's price. After a few bulb replacements, the cost of a projector can be the same as or more than a large HDTV, so other factors come into play: you get a bigger-but-dimmer picture with projectors, some of the cheaper DLP projectors are bright but flicker horribly, etc.
I've read several articles about small projectors using LEDs that should be hitting the market Real Soon Now(tm): novalux.com, as well as some stuff from established companies. They should be cheaper, too: a few hundred $. I don't know when this will occur, however.
