You are not looking hard enough - dimmable fluorescents are available, as are three-way lamps; although both are more expensive than the incadescents. Due to incentives from the utility companies, standard CFL are priced about on a par with incadescents, at least in my part of California. This is significant since about 1/7 of the population of the country lives in California.
I have been using fluorescents at home for some thirty or forty years, although until fairly recently I was limited to the older linear lamps (40 watt, 4 feet long, etc.) and the circular fixtures. When the CFLs became available, I rapidly switched to them, although the earliest ones were much too warm-toned for my taste, looking more like incadescents. Now, a variety of lamp spectra are available and I use "daylight" bulbs when I can an those usually labeled "bright white" otherwise.
People seem to think that incadescents reproduce sunlight faithfully - they don't! Well maybe they look like the light at dusk, just before the sun drops out of sight. There is a tendency to confuse brightness with whiteness. Daylight fluorescents are a much better simulation of sunlight than any incadescent.
Here are the disadvantages I have found with the CFLs, which have replaced all the incadescents in my house except those in the oven, the microwave, and the refrigerator:
CFLs don't like being cold. It makes them start slowly. If you put them in pot-lights which extend up into the attic, then they will stay dim for a long time after you turn them on in cold weather.
There is poor coordination between manufacturers as to the exact spectrum of a lamp with a particular designation. If you have a multilamp fixture or a multi-fixture array, then when you buy a new bulb, it may not match the rest. It is best to note the brand and model number (on the white base) of a bulb to be replaced in an array and shop for the same one. I am sure that, as the market matures, this inconsistency will go away.
The white ceramic(?) base of the bulb (above the threaded part) is sometimes took large in diameter to allow the bulb to be screwed fully into some fixtures, especially those with globes or reflectors which taper down to the socket. Most bulb do work in most sockets.
Dimmable bulbs in a multifixture installation may not all go off at the same light level as they are dimmed. If you like to dim to nearly dark, you might be disappointed.
You should really dispose of them at a toxic-waste recycling center, but you probably need to visit them occasionally anyway, unless you limit the things you buy very carefully
One of the best parts, for me (and only when using the daylight lamps), is that I can now tell dark blue from black and have stopped labeling my pants (on a pocket), which I had to do when using the incadescents.
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