Thanks, but the links you provided didn't address the discussion at hand, as I already mentioned when you presented them. I appreciated it nonetheless.
What was/is needed is some specific information, not conjecture and a wiki link. To date there is no definitive answer as the ballast and lamp people are dancing around this entire issue. And they agree there is a lot of debate and confusion. Out of all the tech people I talked to, only one claimed to have actual measure spectral data and "was not at liberty" to share. I've been in the lab / testing biz long enough to know that when someone has data they can't share, there either is NO data or the data paints a bad picture.
I have been unsuccessful finding any hard spectral data when a HID lamp is dimmed. I have company opinion from ballast manufacturers and lamp manufacturers. None of them want to wade into this issue, so they either don't know or there's bad news. In any event, this really speaks poorly about the ballast / lamp community at large.