I don't have the 61". I have the 42". I got it at Best Buy about 8 or 9 months ago for $1600 I believe. I have seen the 61" and you need a pretty good sized room for it. Even HD looks bad if you are too close. My husband wants to get the 61" for our family room but... I have a Yamaha surround system, DVD player and an HD cable box hooked up to mine. My only complaint is the sound on the HD channels. A lot of them increase the sound when the commercials come on and sometimes it'll blow you away. But that's not a problem with the TV.
It looks very nice and I hear that samsung make very high quality (but affordable) products so if i were you, I would go for it!!
My computer screens at the office are samsung... there good. I don't know about TV.. never tried a Samsung yet.