What Cree is actually doing is replacing their claimed 10,000 hour bulb with a 5,000 hour bulb. However, their 10,000 hour bulb doesn't achieve its rated life; I now have four failed ones. The power supply, not the LEDs, fail.

The coming thing is a power supply that doesn't use electrolytic capacitors.[1][2] This should increase power supply life beyond LED life, to about 40,000 hours. But will we see that in consumer products?

[1] http://www.ledsmagazine.com/ugc/2011/09/dali-power-unveils-l... [2] http://www.rle.mit.edu/per/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/Chen-E...