Hi,
I don't know much about pj's but I thought I'd try and help since noone has replied.
I'm pretty sure you need some good brightness considering most of what is displayed is usually white - especially so, as you will be using it in the daylight. So I would bet, like you said that you're gonna need about 2000lums.
It really depends on your budget and what kind of quality you're looking at, which is why I would say those Optomas aren't the best choice as they are aimed at the home cinema market rather than business use. Which will probably mean that the strong points of their operation is the ability to process moving images rather than stationary images, so a wasted feature you're paying for.
If high quality is a strong requirement, then I would say you need at least an XGA pj. If good quality is enough, then SVGA would be fine. Same applies to screen size, the bigger the screen, the high res you will need to maintain quality.
Contrast ratio I would say look for something again, around 2000 This should help black font to pop out and be clearer on a white background.
So:
High Quality - 2000lums+ , 2000:1cr+ , and XGA+.
Good Quality - 2000lums , 2000:1cr, and SVGA.
I personally have been looking around for a projector and decided to buy an Optoma HD65 for home theatre. But along the way, I found this which looks like a bargain for business use and judging by the comments left, good for gaming/DVD purposes also:
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/127042
It is DLP which should be ok for business use, I don't see why not but if you're presenting to people that can see the RBE (If it's visable), it may be an eyesore and offputting.
Good luck,
Evan
And please, anyone correct me if I'm wrong - I'm learning too