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There's some good websites out there to help with the research, however, that's the key - you will need to do research.
I've been through this process recently because we want to have battery backup here (various reasons not related to economics). We should be getting the system installed in the next month or so. For the whole package of panels + battery, we should get payback in a bit under 10 years through a combination of increased self consumption and FIT to offset what little we should be drawing from the grid (plus of course, the daily supply charge). It's the solar panels, not the battery that's providing the majority of the economic benefit of the system.
As for the components themselves, the panels are generally now going to last 20 to 30 years (with degradation as noted). Inverters are around 10 years, and the batteries are 10 years too (depending on your cycles/day). That's based on the warranties.
Besides the questions raised in other posts, some other things to consider:
* Noise of inverter - might be important depending on where it's got to go.
* Potential shading of panels - this can reduce output of a "string" and might cost more to work around (microinverters/optimisers)
* Battery? - consider charge rate / draw rate, especially the latter if you want auto switchover to battery.
* Want battery backup - that requires special hardware to isolate your property from the grid if the power drops.
* Auto switchover is not instant - CPU based gear will probably "reboot", so UPS is still required for the low milliseconds to potential couple of seconds required to changeover. And if you choose the Tesla Powerwall 2, you'll need suitable UPS to handle input power frequency changes.
* Hail - there's a standard test for panels - much sure your choice meets or exceeds the tests.
* Panel degradation - you can get details for how much a particular panel will degrade over its lifetime.
* Single vs 3 phase power can impact some choices as well, including how much you can export to the grid.
Warren: you may need to get your inverter checked, but at 10% loss in the system, I probably wouldn't stress over it for a while.
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