I've never been taken with the CFL bulbs, they seem to promise more than they deliver. I recently read that Cree has LED bulbs that are dimmable with old style dimmers, they don't require LED/CFL compatible dimmers. The utilities around here are doing a promotion through Home Depot, 60 watt equivalent bulbs that normally cost $9.97 (2700k color) to $10.97 (5000k 'daylight' color) were selling for about $5 off. We have 2 3 bulb fixtures and replaced the CFLs with the daylight bulbs. BIG difference, they seem much brighter and 15 yr. old slide dimmers work just fine. I wish I had thought to check with amperage with 3 CFLs vs. the LEDs before replacing buttoning up the boxes up but didn't.
One thing I did learn - the way this circuit was wired the switched wired fed kitchen, dining room AND basement/shop fluorescent fixes w/ ballast. When I first installed the dimmer, the LED lights would slowly blink. What in the world? I thought perhaps the dimmer was sort of like a GFCI where there was a line and load side so switched the wires. No difference. The dimmer was also getting warm. I thought perhaps the Cree bulbs didn't really work with old style dimmers but there was a help line phone #. The tech figured out right away the problem - dimmer controlled LED bulbs can't be on the same circuit as ballast equipped fluorescents. It took me a bit to figure out what wire did what but I was able to pig tail the feed with one wire to the LED-dimmer circuit and one to the basement fluorescent fixtures. Problem solved. It looks to me like LED bulbs might finally be legitimate replacements for incandescents and they use a LOT less juice - about 80% less and don't get as hot. Most importantly, the light quantity and quality are what we want.