It's always a bit down to personal taste too I guess.
A good CRT will get you better black levels, unless you can afford the Kuru range from Pioneer.
Regarding RGB vs component thing... Progressive, only available over component, get's you a non interlaced picture which is great for progressive screens like LCD's and plasmas. I don't think the difference is double the vertical resolution as they advertised so much when progressive was a marketing tool. It's better and can be noticed on some cases, specially on moving objects (resolution of moving objects is less noticed by the eyes by the way), but if your TV has good processing you won't note that much difference.
However even most top range CRT's will have some flicker as they don't display progressive images at 100Hz. Only exception I can remember were the latest JVC's which upscaled images to 1080i at 75Hz.
I didn't see that much difference on my 36" Toshiba. In fact I preferred RGB because my eyes are a bit sensitive to flicker. That said some people don't seem to notice/mind it that much, that's why I said it's a bit down to personal taste.
It should also be noticed that 50Hz progressive is not as flickery as 50Hz interlaced so it won't be like the old 50Hz sets with lots of flickering.
Flicker is also more noticed on very bright areas.
Think that's enough for now
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