I tried the halogens, they were a little brighter, and worked ok. Until they burn out anyways. Seems to me that the life is a little short for my tastes. I also tried the led bulbs. They would be fine for a lens not equipped with blue dots. The have to have the same color lens as the lamp illumination to work properly. The blue dots end up lining up with the lamp, and therby actually block some of the light. I ended up going with a Technostalgia conversion kit. It uses a panel of leds instead of a bulb. I further modified it to allow for a blue led behind the blue dot, so it has it's own lamp for illumination.
There's also complete assemlies and replacement lenses that have leds built in, about 30 or so per housing. They look pretty good, too.
