I can honestly say that i'm one of the lucky ones that screen tearing has yet to affect to any large degree.

Perhaps it's a combo of equipment that is giving you the large amounts of grief?

Try what Benga said and use comp cables, also chek if there is a "game mode" on your TV

Try change your HDMI cable and enable or disble super white settings in your PS3

Try routing your PS3 audio through the optical output instead of HDMI

imho (and please correct me if i'm wrong), one of the reasons i think screen tearing is more prevalent in modern HD consoles is the sheer number of different combinations of different equipment that these games would need to be tested on, it's much easier on PC i think with hardware standards such as directX compliance to avoid many problems, but even then it still happens, therefore the need for tricks like v-sync to stop the screens frame buffers overloading, and of course theirs not much devs can do to work around many end user problems like artifacts caused by faulty or badly overclocked hardware etc.

edit: don't forget tricks hardware manufacturers use too to achive things like 1ns response time, some are craftier than others, so always buy the best equip you can reasonably afford imo

Traditional regional differences aside, with non HD systems the problem is a lot easier with basically one standard definition to output (although there are exceptions), and not have to worry about 1080i or p or 720i or p or the multitude of resolutions and scalings in the middle of all that.

in short, the situations leading to tearing and their solutions are not always simple and straight forward, and the devs are not always the ones to blame first.

as for loading times, things have greatly improved. gone are the days having to wait 1/2 hour for Kung Fu Masters to load off a tape! :) and with GT5 in particular, whether or not you are connected to the internet can make a huge difference to screen load times (with my crappy internet connection, screens can take up to three times as long as they take when I'm not connected to the internet)

Only significant screen tearing I've noticed with PS3 exclusives is Heavy Rain. It has quite a bit of tearing, to the extent that I notice it. I've not playedGT5 so can't comment but my exclusives are: all 3 R&C games, Valkyria Chronicles (I must mention this in every thread created by someone who's just got their first PS3), Uncharted 1&2, Demon's Souls, ModNation Racersm, Little Big Planet, Sports Champions, Heavy Rain with Move upgrade (Interestingly I only noticed screen tear after upgrading to Move edition), InFamous, Resistance FoM, and a few PSN games, including the very cool Kung Fu Live, the lovely Flower and the fun Fat Princess. So there's lots to choose from.

I also have a few of the less heavily compared multiplats, like Naruto Shippuden Ultimate Ninja Storm 2, and that game is rock solid for frame rate and screen tearing.

A lot PS3 games do have a lot of screen tearing (more then the 360) because they do not use VSYNC, or other techniques to help hide it as much.

"In short, it should "just work"."

In a perfect word yes, but this has been a problem on PC games for year, and as consoles became more PC like, the same thing has happened.

Thanks for some good feedback, will try the cable thing but I really think it is an issue with certain software rather than with the hardware setup.

Right now I'm replaying Final Fantasy VII that I downloaded off PSN. Awesome, awesome, awesome, and no tearing there, haha :)

Tho, I did have to buy it twice. Little did I know that the European PSN store has the same problem as the PAL Virtual Console on Wii, all the games run in 50 Hz with the wrong aspect ratio.... (Atleast now I know that Nintendo arent the only ones who still dont give a f*** about Europe)

FF7 looked god damn awful and stretched out. Luckily I only sinked in 75 NOK before finding out.

VERY GOOD THING that the PS3 is basically region free, so I made a Canadian account and bought FF7-9 there, and got the wonderful 60 Hz versions. Only annoying thing was that I couldnt use my credit card there, so I had to buy PSN Cards online, but atleast I only have to do it for the PS1 games, and can still use the european account for PS3 downloads that are equal quality worldwide.

Never noticed it on my Xbox 360, maybe give that a try. Not that the ps3 is not enjoyable but if  it ruins your gaming experience that much then try the alternative. Doesn't hurt to have both consoles anyway.

Plus kinect adds a new experience to gaming. If you like wii, You should like kinect. Also it doesn't hurt that they have some awsome exclusives.

Please dont use this opportunity to try to woe me over to the xbox :) You will fail.