Burn in is 100% real with current plasmas... in the first 100 hours of use. The word "Menu" from the OSD is burned into the top left corner of my ST30.
I have an ST30 so it's not like I'm partial to the new ST50's, but the ST50's are brighter than the ST30's, have deeper black levels, and have a newer anti-reflective filter; hardly indistinguishable.
Having a similar problem. The magician software is waking my computer up after I put it to sleep, after about 30 seconds of sleep, every time. Scheduling is off.