“They give off horrible light”
Honestly, I don’t notice too much of a difference in the type of light emitted between the CF and the incandescent ones. The first generation ones were terrible, very noticeable flicker. But they’ve gotten a lot better.
The only difference is for the indoor floods I use in the kitchen, the light takes like 30 seconds to get fully bright.
I just bought a house that had the newest ones in place. They're quiet, don't flicker, and are too bright. I've had to remove a few—kept as spares.
We use CFLs everywhere but where the fixtures take fluorescents or use decorative incandescents. The only slow warmups are the indoor floods (and not all of those), some of the older CFLs have a second or so turnon delay.
The lighting from them used to be terrible, but the ones we have today, when shaded, are indistinguishable from incandescents.