Those bare 1/4-inch wide bulbs are extremely hot. The ones I've been using are like this:
where the actual halogen bulb is about an inch long and enclosed in the larger glass envelope. The surface isn't hot enough to catch anything on fire, but it causes cheap plastic sockets and shades to turn brittle quickly. But then the cheap lights I buy might just have turned brittle with any lights.
Don’t halogen lights cause health problems for some people?
I know the post office had problems with their high output lights because they were not putting the lens covers over the lights. The bulbs were putting out UV light and causing sunburn and illness.