With regard to LED lifespan, the Cree LR6 downlights I bought 3.5 years ago are still running perfectly. Not a single failure. You can see that they took heat dissipation seriously in their design.


I also have a bunch of Philips 60W A19-style bulbs, and have similarly experienced no failures, no issues. They're all in fixtures with relatively good airflow.

So far as I can tell, LED bulbs are already amazing and with the falling costs and increasing brightness per watt, are ready to completely own the market. What I'm waiting for are for more fixtures to come out with built-in LEDs, intended to last for the life of the fixture. Since any metal light fixture might just as well be engineered to be the heat sink for the LEDs, this isn't all that far fetched. There are a handful of such fixtures on the market, but primary focused on commercial applications, street lights, etc.