That is a lie.
The whole set of, "you can only see around so many FPS so 30 is enough and you can't really tell the difference" and, "on a 40 inch TV, from 6 -8 feet away, you can't tell the difference between 720p and 1080p." NEEDS TO STOP.
Fuck what you read or hear.
I HAD a 40inch and I could EASILY tell the difference between 720p and 1080p, 30fps and 60fps.
Hell, I can tell the difference between raw 1080p and downsampled 1620.
I can also usually tell the difference between 50-60 FPS.
When watching a movie, I can kind of understand this concept, sometimes...maybe.
But with videogames, you're displaying raw, aliased, sharp lines.
IIRC some big name said something about if we can Antialias in a way that resembles the focus of film, and also get motion blur to a point similar to that in film, we would be able to get away with normal resolutions and 24 fps without compromising IQ.