LI too replaced all interior can lights in our home to CFL's only to be diasapointed in the longevity of the bulbs and no noticeable energy savings. I did not want to have a similar experience with LED's.
That's certainly rational. CFL benefits and reliability were spectacularly oversold. I can understand once-bitten-twice-shy, but LEDs really are much,
much better than fluorescent in many dimensions: see
this comparison.
The 50,000 hour reliability figure is probably for the individual physical LEDs themselves and almost certainly presumes good cooling and no problems with other circuitry (like ballast bypass) but my experience with LEDs so far has been orders of magnitude better than CFL, incandescent, or normal T8 fluorescent bulbs. I've had no problems whatsoever: instant on, much brighter, consistent light, no failures (in my shop) so far, and less power consumption. High energy LEDs (e.g. CREE)
do need good heatsink/cooling design to remain reliable.
I
have had one (just one) LED assembly fail in my home. It was in a sealed bathroom light fixture — I strongly suspect it was a cooling (design) issue. Unlike CFLs, I believe this was a design flaw with the specific device/application and not with the underlying technology. I've not found reliable CFLs from any manufacturer, but this was the
only LED light assembly I've ever had fail. I replaced it with one from another manufacturer a couple months ago. We'll see.
They are still more expensive than fluorescent, but the adoption rate has been quite fast and they are getting cheaper every day. FWIW, I'll never go back.
Regards,
--
Rex
