TV Enlargement Research

With televisions getting bigger and bigger and slimmer and slimmer, I do wonder whether we are getting a little carried away with this crave for a bigger TV. I am not against big TV because there are places that do require huge TVs where they will be appreciated: Like in a football stadium showing close ups/replays or on a suntec city facade showing adverts/other stuff. But at home... come on... why would someone even need a 55 inch flat screen TV.
My home currently has an ageing, but still fully functioning, 40" LCD TV and i believe it is more than big enough. You see, when my family first changed from a 30+" CRT TV to a 40" LCD when i was still in JC (or about 6 years ago). The first thing that caught our attention is that it is too big. For the first time, it became difficult to read the subtitles while paying attention to the programme because the subs were too far away from where the action was. It is as if we could not see the whole TV at once, it was too big for our eye's periphery. But in the end, the human spirit triumphed and we learned to cope with the bigger TV.
Anyway, the reason why I am commenting on the ongoing TV enlargement trend is that I was wasting time at Best Denki once and caught sight of a new range of LED TVs. I later found out that those TVs are really LCD TVs but with LED back lighting and isn't as much a breakthrough as the marketing would make it seem. But that's not the point. The point is, the smallest TV that they sold was 32" and the next smallest was 40". I repeat, the second smallest "LED" TV was the same size as the one in my living room! It took only 6 years for a 40" to change from one of the largest sized flat screen to one of the smallest!
But here is the problem, a bigger TV would actually need a bigger living room. So, do you really want a bigger TV? For anyone who has been to a cinema to watch a movie while seating a few rows from the front-most seat, they would learn the hard way that a big screen is actually a burden. On top of a stiff neck, you would also realise that you would be missing parts of the action as your eyes just cant take in the whole screen at once. Which sux to the core. And the same logic goes for TV at home. Big TVs are great for showing off, but bad for watching.
But the more important question is, how do I pick the right size for my living room? Well, i did some prodding around on google... and tada... I got the following:

Screen	Viewing distance range
26"	3.25-5.5 feet
32"	4.0-6.66 feet
37"	4.63-7.71 feet
40"	5.0-8.33 feet
46"	5.75-9.5 feet
52"	6.5-10.8 feet
58"	7.25-12 feet
65"	8.13-13.5 feet
70"	8.75-14.75 feet

Anyway, so now you know. It turned out that the 40" my family has was about right for the size of the living room. In any case, do note that the perceived size of the TV is really about the distance from the screen. You can always sit closer to a small TV but sitting further from a large TV will require some wall demolition. Even your humble and tiny laptop screen is capable of 1280x800 resolution which works out to be 780p in TV language which is considered HD. So the argument that a bigger TV will give better images is bullshit. The only advantage that a larger screen affords you is that you can sit further away from the TV, which means that more people can watch the TV before it gets crowded. But how many people would watch the same TV screen showing that one programme at the same time anyway. It is more likely that there will only be one person watching it, and that person is the one with the remote.
So before buying a flat screen, first determine the distance your head will be from the TV when sitting on the sofa and decide whether or not you will be mounting the TV on the wall or will it be on a stand which would effectively reduce your viewing distance. hmm... sorry... i am an engineer and cant look at things from a less than scientific approach, TVs included.