I have replaced about 90% of mine so far. The only ones left are the decorative ones in the bath rooms.

These energy saving bulbs have been around for a good number of years now, but imo the public's resistance to them has been fuelled by the manufactures using the idea of energy saving, as a reason to hike the price up beyond what is reasonable.
And of course they would try and claim that they were doing this before they were "forced" to.

For example a good quality energy saving bulb here will cost about 20 times as much as a good quality normal bulb, and if you have used these energy savers, you will understand that the claims made about their longevity are somewhat exaggerated.

We dont have quite the price difference here. I have found their longevity to be close to advertised . Close enough anyway that I will never buy another incandescent bulb again

Don't get me wrong i am all for energy saving, but to many times we see the public ripped off over such things as this, and especially where safety is concerned, take the great smoke detector rip-off for example.

Of course the cumulative effect of the whole world switching to energy saving bulbs would be substantial to say the least.

Maybe if all manufacturers here are forced to produce only energy saving bulbs it may of course reduce the price due to the competition generated, we will see.

There are places where a fluorescent should not be used: when the light is only turned on for a few minutes. Closets, store rooms, pantries, and such should have incandescents because the intermittent use of the CFLs will shorten their life dramatically and the startup energy for them is very high, causing the use of more electricity.