I wish I had found this site earlier. Anyway, I had the same problem and had decided to fix the fuse. It was not very difficult to remove the whole back panel on my Panasonic CT32HXC model. You need to remove All the screws and just pull out the back panel. I replaced the fuse 6 A/250V from Radio Shack and Bingo! It worked. The fact that I needed to borrow a truck and carry this heavy set plus a 50$ just to check out the problem motivated me to do this and I am so glad it worked...

I am another grateful reader. I replaced the fuse in my dead 32" Panasonic Tao with a 6.3amp 250V, 5mm x 20mm slow blow fuse and the set is working fine now. The job took 5 minutes at most. I live in BC and bought the fuse at The Source (Circuit City). Got 2 fuses for $4.99.

BrooksV, I sounds like I have the same symptoms as you, LED comes on makes a few noises then nothing. After a few minutes it will do the same thing.
If it was a fuse I would think it would not even light the LED unless it is getting power from the flyback transformer that acts as a big capacitor to store a charge for power up. Did you try the fuse, and if yes did it fix your problem?

I'm afraid I don't have a solution, but is anyone else noticing that Panasonic well... misses the bar?
We had a Panasonic TV a few years ago. It lasted maybe 5 years at best. We never did try the fuse trick and just recycled the thing. Our family decided not to trust Panasonic again.
However, when my dad was big screen shopping there was a nice Panasonic, and it was on sale. We mentioned our concerns to the sales guy and he mentioned there was a problem with Panasonic tv's but it has been fixed. We ended up buying it. Sure enough, it has been at most 2 years and there is a black dead section on the screen already (with a thin green line). Perfect. We are going to see if we can get it fixed/repaired under warranty but that is the second time Panasonic has well... died. Yikes! We have a Sears brand TV downstairs which has run without problems for over 30 years!