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Better common light bulbs
Even though I'm pretty good at turning off unused lights, there are many spots in the house, especially this time of year when it's dark at 4:30pm, where we just like some lights on, rather than living in a cave. Because of the size of the house, and the high ceilings, even more lights are required to make the place bright enough to be livable. Add to that the fact that my gal likes to stay in one end of the house and read & play the piano, and I stay back in my den and "the bare minimum" lights are most of the lights in the house!! 
I started a few years back swapping a bunch of the incandescent bulbs with CFL's.
The first thing I noticed was, as Dennis mentioned, the colour has a bearing on perceived brightness, a soft white bulb needs to be higher wattage than the bright white in order to be able to see the same under both.
I also gave up on the CFL tri-light bulbs, I just figured out what light level we used and replaced them with a regular CFL of the same wattage we used the tri-light bulb on.
The other thing I did was in places where I just flip the light on & off while I'm in the room, such as the powder room off the den or the garage, I replaced either the switch or fixture with a motion sensing model. If I walk in the light goes on, after (a settable) amount of minutes after it lasts detects motion (or an IR target if you're prone to reading  ) it turns the lights back off for you automatically.
Of all the bulbs I've replaced with CFL's so far, only the tri-lights, and a failed attempt at using them in a ceiling fan (they need special vibration proof models for that, really rare) all but one of them are still working fine.
The outdoor one that died did so as a result of yours truly and Deputy Dog engaging in some horse play that went horribly wrong...... but that's another story.
Best of luck.
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Better common light bulbs
I suspect the problem of Mercury and such with CFLs is vastly over-stated.
CFLs, like many other forms of light bulbs use a gaseous VAPOUR to cause the illumination. In the case of a Fluorescent light bulb, the 'normal' cause for failure is that the Mercury (or other) gas has been depleted through either consumption or leakage. This type of failure starts with the bulb getting dimmer and changing colour, usually to a pinkish colour, as the Mercury disappears and the only thing left is the Argon or other inert gas which gives a different light, and not as much of it either.
To put it in perspective, if your electricity comes from a coal-fired generating station, in the 5 years (the average) life span of a CFL, the generating station would have released nearly double the amount of Mercury into the atmosphere from powering the incandescent bulb over the CFL than the CFL contains in total.
BTW, most areas now have a CFL recycling facility to ensure the proper disposal of CFLs, coal-fired generating stations keep chugging right along.
Best of luck.
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11-20-2007, 10:19 
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