Oh how I sometimes long for the days where one bought bulbs from the store and they worked. Thoughts of color temperature, CRI, suitable dimmers, or physical orientation never entered the mind. Bulbs just worked, in any fixture, with any dimmer, until they went out in a flash of glory!
With that said, I have been using 3500K Ecosmart CFLs from Home Depot. Reasonably priced, acceptable color for our preferences, and a good (claimed!) life expectancy. Despite the base-up orientation depicted on the packaging, the life expectancy suffers greatly. I installed two dozen last fall and have several failures - three in the last two weeks.
I bought two overpriced CREE 4Flow bulbs to compare the 2700K soft white and 5000K daylight with our existing CFLs. The soft whites are too yellow and the daylights are too blue. I had Sylvania 5,000K full spectrum (90CRI) fluorescent tubes in my last garage and they were great. It seems like all of the new specs are essentially meaningless, or at least less than helpful when trying to match bulbs
So, what is your method for choosing bulbs? How do you find a bulb that doesn't make your ultra white ceiling paint look yellow or blue, or fail in six months with the base up?