Has LED caught up to Plasma?


I know that the plasma tv's in the past were always considered to be better than the LED or LCD formats. I'm wondering if this is still the case. With improvements in technology, has the gap narrowed? I bought a 42" Panasonic Plasma over 8 years ago (and yes, it's still working...wished it would have died by now! lol) and am looking to upgrade to a new 55" tv. In all honestly, when I chose plasma back then, I thought the picture quality of both the plasmas and the LED/LCD models were both very good. Even though my plasmas has lasted all these past 8 years, my big concern is that they do heat up quite a bit....where LED's run much cooler. I'm thinking this might translate into a longer life with and LED tv instead of a plasma. What would you buy today if you were buying??? Plasma or LED?
calgarian5355
5 ft. away from an 84" screen!? I don't know Chad, I find that even in a theater, if I have to move my eyes from left to right to see what's happening, I'm sitting entirely too close! I'll defer to those of you that actually prefer sitting in the front but it doesn't work for me. I've sat in large projection TV rooms and been impressed, but never that close.
Chadnliz, that might be your personal preference, but it doesn't conform to any established guidelines I'm familiar with:

http://myhometheater.homestead.com/viewingdistancecalculator.html
I was being a bit cute there but the "THX" seating standards are pretty extreme. I sit about 10ft from my 100in for movies and about 9 from 58in plasma for general viewing.
I agree the "THX" settings do seem pretty extreme. The SMPTE guideline seem to be more appropriate, at least to me.