[Charles Martel]

A lot of headlight performance comes from reflector design, regardless of whether the light source is HID, LED or halogen. Until recently, the European headlight specifications were far superior to those of US DOT. If the lamps are designed well, you can put a lot more light down the road and not dazzle oncoming drivers.

You've got to be careful with "E-Code" lights, though - there are versions for continental Europe and others for the UK, designed so the beam pattern is reversed.

[steve86]

A lot of headlight performance comes from reflector design

Yes, I know that's true. Regarding oncoming headlight observations, I've recently noticed far more "headlights out" than ever before. These would seem to be mainly halogen lamps with burned filaments, not high-tech light emitters. Now, I am not sure if the failure to replace dead sealed beam units is due to economic reasons or what, but I've also recently seen updated sealed-beam designs with MTBF of only a few hundred hours. Up here in northern latitudes headlights are needed much of the time in winter and no wonder they don't last long in calendar time! Conversely, my pickup has had the same old-tech sealed-beam bulbs for well over 10 years and may be dimming a bit now.