Yeah, I know what you mean, unless you are the type that plays "Xbox360" or "PS3" all the time,which if you were, you probably would not be posting on a refined forum of connoisseurs such as this.
I have an HDTV, the only way I can play old school games that look decent is with it hooked up to the laptop and run emulators on it. When I try to run my real consoles, it looks well...like shit, thats pretty much the best way I can describe it. Next time I buy a TV, its gonna be one of those old school late 80's or early 90's CRT's, probably a Sony. Since I pretty much only play old school consoles, a TV to match would be great.