is it better to have a .com name?

I was wondering what the general opinion out there is about dot com names.  It's turning out to be really hard for me to find a good dot com name that isn't already registered.  I was interested in starting a website using webwiz forums under the name answerplanet.com, but someone has already taken the name.  But would it be just as good if I registered answerplanet.info?  And, if I did register answerplanet.info, could the owner of answerplanet.com challenge me and try to take my web site away?  My web site wouldn't be the same type as the answerplanet.com site.  That is an ASP site.  Mine will be an ask-an-expert type of site on multiple topics .

How important is it to have a .com name anyway?  Personally when I think of a web site name I think it should end in .com.  But can you be successfull with .info?

zMaestro, There are definitely a lot of .com sites, but I'm not so sure that means that a .com will be more successfull.  This just indicates that there are a lot more of them.  I just wonder if a .info can be just as sucessfull as a .com.  In any case, I went ahead and purchased the .info site tonight.  I'm hoping it will all be in the marketing and not in the name. 

My thinking is that it will be just like the old 800 phone numbers.  Everyone is just as quick to accept an 888 number as toll free, but they weren't at first.