Wayne,
It's these damn kids and their newfangled thin tubeless sets, and cars with wheels that are too big- you wouldn't understand.
You're right of course, there was no way to touch a 65" flat panel for anywhere close to what I paid for this. Plus the picture quality is very good on this set, I hate trashing anything that works as god as this one does (did). If mstaton can get the boards for it I'll give it a go, if not it may not be economically viable to repair. In that case I may have to store it till a donor set pops up on CL.