Hiya Dan! As the debate continues to swirl over which is the best lighting system to use indoors we as gardeners find ourselves reluctant to move away from what we know works. We have crops to grow and dealing with 25% of rated lamp life change outs, high heat, high wattage, spectral shift, multiple lamps to get through a grow cycle has become an accepted cost of doing business. When presented with manufacturers claims of technical superiority it is justifiably going to be taken with a huge dose of skepticism. As it should. Why fix what ain't broken. Except HID is broken. There are more efficient ways to grow crops but it takes a complete understanding of how light affects our plants.
When considering which artificial lighting technology to install in your indoor garden, keep in mind that the light you choose affects every aspect of your system: water temperature, air temperature, evapotranspiration rates, RH, VPD, rate of CO2 uptake, DO levels, symbiotic bacterial densities, disease resistance, pest resistance, canopy biomass, root biomass, fruit and flower production, nutrient density, brix levels, the list is virtually endless. In sunlight conditions, where the plants receive broad spectrums throughout the entire growth cycle, successful plant development is achieved through the processes of natural equilibrium whereby all of these elements come together to benefit overall plant health. HID as a narrow spectrum devoted to either vegetative (Metal Halide UV-B) or flowering (HPS R-DR) takes what would be a broad spectrum in natural sunlight conditions and forces the plants to adjust to narrower spectrums for what is a myopic approach to what we have been conditioned to believe are spectrums that are more or less important to our plants health based on where the plant is in it's growth cycle. This is exactly what marketing has done for the last 40 years in that HID lamp manufacturers have conditioned growers to buy more lamps and do so more frequently to achieve 'optimum' results. Lunacy.
I respect the opinions of anyone who has been around RIU for damn near 7K posts. That being said I would suggest you take another look at the options that are available to HID and I believe you'll come away with a different appreciation to what can be done to enhance your gardening experience and it won't involve changing lamps twice a year.
Cheers.