We can turn on every light in the house and it will use less than 200w. With incandescents and halogens (for gu10s) I'd be looking at more than that just to light the bathroom. The whole house would use about 1.5kw. Given that the lights are on a lot outside of summer (I'm in the UK) that's a pretty big saving.

But the ones that didn't fail have been fine, and lasted for years. Like CPUs, the yields aren't good but the ones that pass give good service for a long time.

As for the color reproduction issue... you do experience it, I imagine you haven't done color critical work under incandescent and then under LEDs?

I do have some stupidly expensive $29 D-50 compliant LEDs in my office that don't bother me at all. One failed after about 9 months, but the company replaced it for free.

Anyway, I'm highly sensitive to LED flicker, and my wife apparently can hear the buzz from rooms away.

At risk of sounding like a consistent theorist...The market factors that led to the lighting industry forming a "cartel" 100 years ago are certainly alive and well today. I think it's likely that these manufacturers are only selling energy efficient lightbulbs to make more money than they otherwise would -- it's certainly not to save the planet.