I seem to recall that the laws were being rather silly and defined a technology solution rather than an objective. (Damned users and their complete failure to know the difference between a requirement and a solution!!)

ie incandescent are illegal, CFL are not.

Rather than:
X watts must produce at least Y lumens

The latter allowing for efficiency improvements in incandescent technology from materials science and a gradual tightening of the target.

GE seem to have high efficiency incandescents - but they're not at retail yet and the market is shrinking so research is less likely despite the fact that incandescence has a lot of good technology features.

Even better would be an introduction of environmental offset. So components would have a penalty applied for containing things like, oooh, I don't know: mercury?

I look at CFLs and think about asbestos insulation. Orders of magnitude difference but conceptually similar ...

OK, I admit I don't like CFL - almost none of my light fittings will take them without looking ugly. The light itself is functional and not attractive. LED lighting is directional and expensive. I can't dim any of these things without spending a fortune and ripping into my walls.

I've bought 'dimmable' CFLs - they don't like the dimmer switch ("wrong kind f dimmer switch sir - sorry") and they drop by about 5%, any more and they flicker and go out.