wws944
Enlightened
It depends on what you're replacing, how you use it, and where it is in its life cycle. An oft-used incandescent would be an ideal candidate - the ROI will be swift in terms of your electrical bill. A mid-life CFL or recent-gen LED bulb is a poor candidate. A rarely-used incandescent is probably the worst candidate.
Just because something better comes out net week/month/year that's better doesn't invalidate the expense - it's a light bulb, not some $1 million piece of capital equipment that you were depending on remaining bleeding-edge for 2 years to sustain a competitive advantage.
Agreed. Some of us live under oppressive regimes (California...) where "Tiered" utility rates can be in the $0.30-$0.50/KWH range. And as cool as the Switch bulbs look, there are far less costly options. Ignoring CFLs, because I don't like them for all the usual reasons, LEDs make sense now for anything that is used more than, say, 1/2 hour a day. Breakeven on the upfront cost for highly used bulbs (couple hours or more a day) can easily be a year or less.