I hear ya. I bought 4 bulbs to try today and it was almost $100...
We replaced 4 recessed indoor 60 watt flood lights in our vaulted kitchen ceiling with dimmable LEDs for right around $200. I love the things, they are a very bright light when needed but can dim whenever we don't need the kitchen so bright. One of my projects for this winter is to replace the under counter kitchen cabinet halogen lights with LED lights.
I did try a couple of the dimmable LED lights in our TV room but they didn't dim low enough to use as ambient lighting while watching movies and TV but I did replace the lighting over the DVD storage and equipment cabinets with LED floods.
