"I'm talking MEMS technology in general. And no, it's not quantum physics, but where else can you swivel a mirror at 5kHz for years without even oiling the hinges...."

Heh... yeah, true... but if they could oil them maybe there'd be no more stuck pixels?? Or if they had no hinges you'd eliminate the prob. too. The GLV does this and it's a MEMS design. LCoS solves this in another way.

Hmm... maybe teflon hinges for the future DLP chips? I'll just go email TI and tell 'em to do that. -heh

regarding 3 chip convergence -
"Up to a point, but any time you have 3 optical systems there is the potential. If I were a betting person I'd bet the DLP theater systems have a convergence adjustment (maybe even a mechanical one) somewhere."

It'd have to be mechanical if they did, but they don't. Neither do LCD displays.
The chips are all mounted in one housing designed to place them all exactly where they're supose to go, and they can't move. If the convergence isn't off when built, it'll never ever shift from perfect.

It'd be like you being worried about the chips on your motherboard moving around. They just can't in anyway what-so-ever.

"I'm actually on the fence - a spinning color wheel isn't really cool either, but overall I think it seems to be a better solution by a narrow margin."

Is that 'cuz you're worried about 3 chip convergence problems that don't exist? I'll try to find a link to a 3 chip module so you can see what it looks like...

"The other stuff like bulb life etc. that folks complain about are non-issues to me. Just change the doggone lamp!"

It's not the 5 minutes it takes to change a lamp... it's...

1) They're SUPER hot. Living in AZ this sucks bigtime as we only have summer and super-summer here.
2) They need fans to cool them which makes noise at least to some extent, and vents that typical leak some bulb light out. Added parts and design trouble.
3) They cost hundreds to replace.
4) They're all very fragile super high pressure bulbs. You never know when they'll 'pop', you just hope they last what they're rated.Get a fingerprint on 'em and they'll explode. If the fan doesn't cool them well enough (or if the power goes out or someone turns the system to off instead of standby) they'll explode.
5) They don't make perfect 6500K light and the light still needs to be split into RGB.

RF bulbs and/or laser would solve almost all these issues or at least improve them a lot.