I have some LED recessed floods and they are bright, same color as halogens, dimmable, and very pleasing color rendition. (Costco had them). In fact, just for a comparison I left one 75W halogen in the kitchen and the other 9 floods were the LED. Walking into the room, it was very difficult to point out the one halogen. Brightness and color were very good.
Initially LED bulbs had 3 emitters, red, green, and blue with very narrow spectrum so no matter what, the color didn't appear very white. Some then added yellow to help but the same basic problem, 3 (or 4) very narrow spectral lines, not like "normal" light.
so, finally the solution. Use a phosphor coating like they do on floresent bulbs on the LED case surface. the LED excites the phosphor which then emits light at a variety of wavelengths, like a florescent bulb does. Now the spectrum is filling in and the output is much more like natural light. Couple that with varying the brightness of the 3 or 4 emitters and choosing phosphors and it is like floresents where you can make almost any color temperature you want pretty easily.
I suspect there is a very slight hit in efficiency, but more than made up for in the color of the light. And the CREE LED's seem to be continually improving in efficiency as well.
My prediction is that the LED's within one, maybe two years will be priced like the CFL's today and the CFL's will disappear quickly.
