Plasma burn-in issues are far & few. If you use it for static display of text or graphics then you'll experience problems. As for exploding bulbs, that's rare. I have roughly 9 years of experience using Sharp, Panasonic, Mitsubishi, Sony, Toshiba, NEC, and Proxima projectors. Only the Toshiba lamps have either cracked or "exploded" within the proj. ( about 3 times in 5 years). The Sony projs. never failed. Once again the lamps are often manufactured by another vendor and lamp life has never been an issue of concern to me. 99% of my lamp stock lasts their entire, expected lifespan... and these lamps are being used 5-10 hrs. daily.
I also have two 48" Pioneer plasma screens that suffered power supply failures approx. a month out of warranty. Pioneer repaired them for free due to the well documented fact of their pwr. supply failures. And good thing too since the repairs cost in excess of $1000 each!