Harry wrote:

What does the panel know about them? Best make, any snags to watch
out for, best place to buy etc
What can go wrong?

I strongly recommend that you take a look at the splendid AV Forums site at

http://www.avforums.com/forums/

where you'll find a huge amount of very knowledgeable advice and a lot of
people willing to help: it's a bit like this place but for audio-visual gear
and without most of the gratuitous back-biting. There are dedicated
discussion sections for the different types of projectors and for home
cinema in general, reviews, and a reliable trading area for used items,
which can almost always be relied on to have been well looked after and
properly used. I bought my first two LCD projectors secondhand from AV
Forums members and didn't regret it.

If you have any specific questions I'll be happy to do my best with them
here, but AV Forums is far and away the best place to go.

Bert