Don't you think it's rarely about the money? Whether food, clothes, furniture, cars, trucks, houses, etc., isn't it more about satisfaction, status, appearance, class, comfort, culture, what the Jones think, etc.? So with lighting. Incidentally, incandescent doesn't look at all like light in nature, sunlight. Isn't it a very artificial light based on primitive technology, although advance for its time?
I believe this is generally true but I've read that the Philips I bought do actually have a glass component that can break. That said, the tubes seem much more rugged than standard fluorescents.
There are related advantages for outdoor (e.g. road) lighting. LEDs offer full output almost instantaneously and can be dimmed. So, they can be turned off when not needed and output can be adjusted to achieve the desired illumination rather than the early over-lumination typical of sodium or halogen. This because age-related dimming of conventional lamps has to be accounted for.
Same with me, I don't run the fluorescent fixtures that often but they still seem to go dim fairly rapidly. Of course it may be that the T-8s tubes were A grade. I have to recycle the tubes at my town garage which is generally closed when I am not working so it means keeping dead tubes around and hoping I don't break them. I would guess at best my break rate of dead tubes is about 30%.
I think we were still running all of the original 1981 vintage T12 tubes in our quad 8' shop fixtures, when we sold mom's house a few years ago. That shop got used a lot, but not enough to rip thru a single fluorescent bulb in 20+ years. Again, OP is asking about a residential garage not a commercial application.
I've installed 40+ LED bulbs, 1st 20 @ $10 each, price dropping to about $3 each for later ones. Longest in use 2+ years now. Two have failed, one right away, the 2nd after almost 2 years but was buzzing after a couple of months. At current prices cost of failure is nominal. I see $2/bulb prices now. These have been much more reliable than CFLs.
