I tried those two-for-a-dollar, made in Mexico bulbs from the dollar store. The 60w was about half as bright as a regular 60w and they didn't last nearly as long.
MY main complaint about the new LED bulbs is the light is harsh, like fluorescent. Not at all as soft as an incandescent. So I am stocking up on incandescents before they are taken off the market in January. Hopefully by the time my stockpile of incandescents is used up there will be advances in the quality of LED light and the prices will come down.
LED changes the nature of lighting, this isn't just changing the bulb.
CFL is florescent. No matter how it is disguised, it still is a florescent light. That means that is is going to flicker and trigger headaches and epileptic seizures - it's simply the nature of the lights.
LED is a far different proposition, though, There is no flicker from LED, non at all. The biggest issue with "white" LED is that it is blue. The bullshit about low quality and high quality is utterly false. LED casts a blue tinge. However this really isn't a big deal. Light is just part of the spectrum. To get a true white light from a 15 LED array, simply place one red and one yellow LED in the center of the 13 surrounding "white" LED's and the result is true white light.
Where LED REALLY shines is in shifting the paradigm. Too many people think in terms of lamps and bulbs, but LED makes those irrelevant. Imagine your ceiling tiles infused with LED's, when you turn the light on, the entire ceiling IS the light. LED's draw so little power and run so cool that they can be embedded in walls, floors, counters, you name it. Illumination from all angles.
LED lighting changes everything - for the better.