Based on a recent entry, Lockergnomie Mike Roberts had this feedback for our resident Technobabbler:

Fluorescent lamps differ from Incandescent lamps in a variety of ways. The life cycle of a fluorescent bulb is more a function of on-off cycles than operating time. The ballast needs to generate a very high voltage to start the lamp. The starter filament is what fails. On standard fluorescent lamps, you can notice a black ring that grows near the end of the lamp. That's from starting. Incandescant lamps have a tungsten filament which heats up emits particles when in use. The filament eventually emits enough particles that it breaks.
The next wave of lamps will be White LED replacements. It is already happening commercial and consumer applications. Traffic lights, tail lights, automotive interior lighting, LCD backlighting for PDAs, Cell Phones and even some lamptops. Once the economies of scale and technolgy improvement progress, LEDs will replace Compact Fluorescent Lamps.
Lighting as we all know it will change dramatically in the coming years.
Your electric bill may not notice a big change due to the fact that illumation is a small percentage of your overall energy consumption.

I can tell you this: our recent electric bill was the highest I've seen in a while. Time to turn off a few of these unused electronic devices, I'd say. If only there was an easy way to discover what's sucking up the most juice around here.