[The Toad]

I can’t stand them. They give me headaches.

I work with a guy who has the same problem. Hopefully LED's will be low enough in price in a few years so that they can be used instead.

[DB]

Got bad news for you. It is likely cheap LED based lighting will have at least as much flicker as a cheap CFL.

CFL’s get some smoothing of the light output from the persistence of the phosphors used. Different phosphors have different persistence and can be chosen to produce less flicker. LEDs have no inherent persistence (at least in human terms).

The only other way to minimize the flicker is filtering on the AC to DC power supply which takes relatively expensive and bulky capacitors. When cost is the main driver they'll take short cuts on this.