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The biggest problem I have had with (usually A19 60W or 75W equivalent) LED bulbs is their tendency to overheat and become intermittent or intermittently dim. especially in situations where they get operated long hours. OTOH, for short duty cycles in often switched use, such as a typical bathroom, they are usually so much superior (reliability / life) to incadescents that it isn’t funny.

Even most cheap warm white and bright white (3500-4000K) LED lights now have decent color quality, so, that’s not been a big issue for years. In one case I recall, the warm white was a little TOO warm - I just used those where it was not critical, in my older shed and back porch, both being advantageous about not drawing quite so many insects @ night

Theoretically, LED’s should gradually lose output as they age, rather than suddenly quit, but I’ve never noticed that. They “die” suddenly first, or become intermittently dim or just intermittent.

The Great Value LED bulbs and various “off brands” (such as often found at Menards) have been particularly variable about suddenly crapping out for no apparent reason. I’ve taken apart several, over the years, and in all but one case the reason was either:

1) Improper internal design such that the heat generated by the LED’s was never going to be properly conducted to the metal around the “base” even if all the assembly was otherwise correct.

2) In the off-brands, metal around the base can be so thin it poorly conducts heat out from the base of the bulb / the LED’s. (I also suspect powder coated steel or odd alloys with poorer heat conduction than aluminum may sometimes get used. I should test more for this! If a magnet sticks to the metal around the base, and the bulb feels light, that’s not good!)

3) Improper assembly, often consisting of inadequate or completely skipped application of heat sink compound that should “be there” to help conduct heat away from the metal backed “board” the (usually multiple) LEDs are typically surface mounted onto. Crazy as it sounds, this problem is even worse in many shop type lights. I’ve had a LOT of those fail, and they are usually high up, where the environment is usually warmer than, say, a desk lamp. So much for avoiding the hassle of getting up on a ladder. This problem is so severe that I once posted a multi-page manual (were it printed in a standard typewriter font on 8-1/2” x 11” paper) on how to modify a particular high output 4’ shop light, here on FR’s garden thread.

The problem of haphazard assembly is very common with other Chinese products too, of course. The best brand name bulbs are less troublesome - I’m guessing those brand factories have more automation / less chance of a Chinese human robot who doesn’t give a shit, doing assemblies.

Another problem is more readily eplainable: LED bulbs typically do not have good resistance to AC line voltage spikes. We are on a slight rise and have tall oak and hickory trees, plus tall power lines on 2 sides of our property. Ergo, we get a lot of induced voltage spikes from nearby lightning. LED’s do NOT like voltage spikes at all: they are even worse about this than CFL’s and fluorescent lights, whose “electronic” ballasts are pretty bad compared to incandescent lights.

Additionally, it has become hard to find LED bulbs rated for enclosed fixtures, and we have a lot of enclosed ceiling light fixtures that take A19 type bulbs. If a bulb doesn’t say “rated for enclosed fixtures”, the odds it can handle such use are not good. Integrated bulb-fixtures “should” take care of this problem, as they can easily in most cases incorporate more heat sinking, at the cost of having to put in the new fixture / light. Unfortunately, now you have more chances of haphazard assembly, and if replacing a bulb due to a voltage spike is grevious, having to replace an entire fixture is even more so. (2 summers ago, the seemingly “great” $45 LED fixture I’d picked up for our kitchen, to replace the old fluorescent “circline” fixture, got popped by nearby lightning. I was sitting, eating, at our kitchen table right when it happened: Flash outside with simultaneous “pop” from the fixture, and ALMOST simultaneous boom outside. We’d had the light installed for about 4 months. I still had the box & instructions. Sure enough, 90 day warranty... I kept the thing - may try to rebuild it sometime, if I ever get time. (Electronics background.)

All in all, with electricity rates so damn high now, I have to give the nod to LED bulbs. I even do a lot with modifying stick-on, etc., type LED lights to run off of 3 volt or 5 volt “wall warts” instead of batteries, for lighting of small areas, under shelves, etc. These I can “fix” dubious construction of in the process. Not one has failed. :-)