Why does our CRT look better than HDTV?

[jimbofish]

We've always enjoyed the great picture on our 32" Sony CRT with analog sources. We've been noticing the picture on the newer flat panel TVs in bars and stores doesn't look as good as our old stuff at home. When we asked about it the answer has usually been that "that program's not in HD".

I checked out some new flat screens at the local appliance store, not a big box or chain, and they agreed that an hdtv with an SD or analog source would not look as good as a CRT with the same source. They said that we'd need an HD source to get the best picture from an HDTV. Unfortunately, I'm really not that impressed with the HD picture that they were showing from either digital cable or DirecTV. So far the only HDTV picture that I've seen that really looked better than our older setup was with a Blu-ray player.

Since we don't have any plans to upgrade our current sources in the immediate future, will we be disappointed with a new 1080/120 HDTV over our old CRT? None of the dealers have any provision for viewing any analog or SD programming. Or is there a method/setting that will improve the picture? It just seems unreasonable that these new TVs can't make a picture at least as good as the old stuff.