Your post brings up some interesting points but your conclusion — “This is a futile effort” — is wrong.
It’s never a futile effort to fight tyranny. The fight itself is worth it, win or lose.
Trouble is that if you fight the wrong fight, you lose even if you win.
A great example is the border fence. Every villain who supported and still supports unrestricted immigration had “helpful” ideas, all of which would delay a fence or make it prohibitively expensive or both. And they attacked from every angle.
“You have to do ‘x’ first”, “An expensive *virtual* fence is the way to go”, what we need are airships!”, “go after those that hire illegals first”, etc. and etc. Every idea in the world but building a fence now. And many of them declared themselves the strongest believers in stopping illegal immigration! Liars all.
In this case, if the battle to produce incandescent bulbs is won, we still have to fight the battle against the federal coercion of the light bulb and socket and appliance manufacturers, and fight the battle of the power companies forced to comply, and fight the battle of home builders *required* to make non-incandescent bulb homes, etc. and etc.
So instead of fighting to legalize light bulbs, what really needs to be done is to attack the heart of the beast: the EPA. Until that dragon is defeated, it will continue to crank out fights one after the other, until we lose.
Let’s fight tyranny by fighting the tyrant, not just its endless supply of flunkies and laws.