Picked up the Panasonic UB9000 this afternoon. It's very good with my Pioneer Elite.
DVD's of black and white TV is better even than on my Linn Unidisk - the grey scales are graduated into finer increments. Far better in this respect than my older premium Denon. Colour is very good and very pure. BBC's Planets Blu-Ray was just excellent.
And it's fast. No more cuing up a disk before going out for dinner (OK, I exaggerate a bit). Also, it's very easy to hook up, very easy to set up, and the remote is intuitive. But while the remote does the job, it is not elegant or high end, just feels like cheap plastic. But that is a minor quibble.
After 5 hours of ownership, I recommend it highly.