I was a huge disbeliever in CFLs for years. I changed all the lighting in my house abit over 4 months ago to CFLs after reading that most of the negative aspects of CFLs had gone the way of the dinosaur. I installed 6 CFLs I purchased from Costco and besides a short delay (about 1-2 seconds), couldn’t tell a difference. My parents came by for a visit a few weeks later (I had installed many more CFLs by that point). They HATED CFLs with a passion and regularly railed against them at family get togethers. They didn’t notice a difference in the lighting even after I mentioned it to them.
I’m going by my wife, who gives mixed signals. We put in a few CFL’s around the house, and she even “tricked” me by putting one in the bedroom without telling me. ( I didn’t notice the difference. ) But then she later announced that it was “horrible” etc. etc. because of the color appearance of various clothing items. Being male, I can only perceive maybe 4 or 5 color tones, so it’s a wash to me, but theory supports my wife.