They are getting better....slowly. You are beginning to find TV's with 4ms response time, which depending on how they measure it, it's pretty good. One thing TV's usually have going for them is that they generally have a much higher contrast rating then what you'd find on the typical monitor, which could be good for people who are making graphics.
But as you have already said monitors are better, but you need better graphics cards to run the higher resolutions they have to offer. Sure you could turn the resolution down, but now whats the fun in that?
But as warriorscot has already mentioned, when you posted this you have confirmed my fears, its not as good as a monitor, for the exact reasons already mentioned, response times and especially resolution.
You can currently buy monitor which will have HDMI hock up, but their competitor and possibly successor is being released at the end of may. Can't remember whats it's called but it has higher bandwidth and some rumors have said that upcoming graphics cards will support it, but I don't think it'll be overly successful. Just look at firewire and USB 2.0, firewire is better but you rarely see it anymore because few people have the ports to run devices that have the hook up for fail to realize the advantages of it if they do have it.
James