Shopping for a new TV... this is one deep rabbithole...

I am guessing most forum members here have TVs they are happy with and are not planning on an imminent upgrade. I am faced with the daunting task of buying at least 3 new tvs probably this year and possibly 5 or 6 depending on what we decide to do once we move back into the house post-rebuild.

That said, I have been looking a bit at local retailers, best buy, wally world, and Crutchfield. Online its Amazon...because of Amazon's stinky reputation for handling returns on big ticket items in a fair way, I wont buy from them, but I am seeing so much discontent in the reviews posted about all makes and models from all retailers regarding shipping damage, high failure rates, defects that manufacturers will not cover, worthless warranties that you pay extra for, and so on. This is coming from every retailer for the most part. It seems that any TV you buy should be unboxed in the store and powered up to check for damage on-site before being boxed back up and transported to your home. Then you have to install it or get someone to do it for you. Installation reviews of the teams from all the retail players are getting negative reviews in the extreme. Quality issues in some models exceed 10% failure either immediately or within the warranty period...further, each year new models come out that have no track record but drown you in marketing hype...its a confusing and depressing situation. How do you get a good TV? How do you ensure you get good delivery service? I have come to the conclusion that Sony has the fewest defects and that people generally like how the tv is to live with and that there is less need for warranty claims. Who to buy it from? Crutchfield is 90 minutes away so they will ship the TV, but how do you ensure you get some high level of competency in your delivery team? As much as these TVs cost, I could buy a decent car for what some of them go for, so naturally entrusting the transport to Darryl and his other brother Darryl is not something I would willingly do, but what other alternative is there? I'd love to hear what you guys think about all of this and if you have purchased a TV within the recent past, how your experience went.