I lived close to the airport for a while and noted that a lot of the time (read, normal days) arrivals were from the north. This is due to prevalent southerly winds. On weird windy days, they moved arrivals to the two angled runways, which are only easily viewed from side streets or Southlake.

Grapevine is close, but is farther north than you probably want to be. There are some hotel options off of 114 on the east-side of the 121 artery that are extremely close to the runway and next door to the shipping terminal (FedEx, DHL, etc.) (http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=3...&t=k&z=15&om=1)

There is a planespotting area at DFW but it has been closed during a redesign of the taxiways.

If you are willing to be a little daring, you can do what I do and park at the AA/DFW operations building and watch the takeoffs and landings. It's got a somewhat restricted view, but you are definitely up close and personal when they are coming in from the south. http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&t=k&...,0.020084&z=16 (building on the left)

The 17L/35R from what I've seen, is not used that often, as ATC likes to use 2 runways for takeoffs and 2 for landings at the same time (usually one of each on each side).