I have a bunch of fluorescent pigtails. Yeah, they pretty much all suck, in one way or another.
Some of the better ones have improved in the issue of "warmup", but the color rendition is still awful.
The Phillips bulbs with the three yellow panels (they look like something from Star Trek TNG), are actually excellent. They just look funny, so I don't have them installed in my fan light fixtures where the bulb is visible. In my dining room chandelier with frosted glass cups, I replaced nine 60W bulbs with these. The light is just as good as before. Although the shadow of the gaps between the yellow panels appears as a dark line on the frosted glass, the room is very evenly lit.
They are completely dimmable, and unlike incandescent bulbs that turn horribly orange as they dim, these stay the same color, so when fully dimmed, you have a moonlight like effect.
Before these, the yellow phosphorescent material used for white LED lights was directly on the LED component (that's the tiny yellow square you see in most white light LEDs).
My experience has been that while the LED electronics may indeed last for a long time, the color starts to degrade, and I suspect it is because of the amount of light and heat that the phosphor is exposed to. By moving the phosphor to a remote panel as Phillips has done, I am guessing that the color will stay excellent over a longer period of time.
As for the price. The 60W equivalents came to market at close to $50, and spent a long time at $40 each.
About 6 months ago the local power company made a deal with the box stores that they would pay $20 towards the sale of each energy star bulb that the put on a list.
The price then dropped to $35, which became $15 at the register (actually, it was listed at $15 on the shelves even, as the deal is a little "behind the scenes").
For $15, you're not talking much more than a dimmable fluorescent bulb, so I decided it was time to jump.
The 60W equivalent bulb is 12.5W, but I believe the next generation version (which should be out later this year, and was the actual "L Prize bulb") is 10.5W.
The other LED bulbs I've had great experiences with have been from Feit. They make a bulb for 6" hi-hats that replaces the bulb AND the trim ring (this way there is no unsightly heat sink visible, as the new white painted trim ring actually handles the heat dissipation). I believe they're $45 at HD, but again, because of the local power company, they're $25 on the shelves by me. I replaced all four bulbs in my kitchen, and the light is again just as good as it was from 65W incandescent reflector bulbs, but at only 10.5W, plus the bonus of not going orange as they dim.