Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

My wife and have used Halogen Torchiere type lamps for more than 20 years. We like/need the amoount of light you can get from a 300 or 500 watt Halogen lamp and the lack of glare of indirect lighting (using light bounced off white celing.).This lamp comes with a lower light output bulb and we replaced with a 300/+ watt halogen lamp. I had no issues with the initial quality of this lamp or assembling it... or any damage in shipping. I also bought a 300 watt lamp through Amazon. These type of halogen lamps(bulbs) are also sold at hardware stores that sell "work lights" e.g., for workmen working at night. But, the halogen torch lamps are no longer readily available in stores like Target and K-Mart like they used to be. There is probably good reason for that because the heat given off these lamps is hot enough to start a fire if they tip over and/or are close enough to combustible material. This lamp has a spherical white wire mesh guard on the top which my older halogen torch lamps did not have. Still, be careful with these hot lamps. We turn them off when we leave the room. We had four young children at home (now grown out and moved out) when we first used this type of lamp and had no safety problems. But I am aware of a relative who started a fire with one of these lamps while in college... He left the room and it was too close to a drape. But expect some problems overtime... Eventually, there are things that go wrong with halogen lamps. The contacts where the lamps (bulbs) are inserted can arc and pit and affect the quality of the electrical contact. When they arc, you can hear a buzzing sound. Some times this can be fixed by cleaning the contacts (e.g., with emory cloth/sandpaper.) I've also had the dimming switches fail and relaced them with simple on/off switches. As the these lamps wore out, I would save the parts that were good in order to make replacement lamps bad combing the good parts of the lamp parts (e.g., make one workable lamp out of the parts of two other ones that had issues. My point is including this information is that I expect this lamp to perform as my older lamps did. But, I've had no problems thus far. Until there is better high-output, more energy efficient option, this Halogen Torchiere type is the only choice for me... I have not been able to find a suitable (high-light-output, low-glare)replacement option in a regular store. The trend with lighting is to offer the same light output (of normal/tyipcal lamps) with lower electrical/energy cost. I've even thought of building a light box where I could put in 5-10 regular or more energy efficent lamps. (I would put it on top of our china cabinet and bounce the light off the ceiling.) NOTE TO DESIGNERS: There is a market for a high-light-output, low-glare, energy efficient lamp suitable for using in a living room. Bottom line... My wife and I are VERY HAPPY that we were able to find a suitable replacement for our old halogen torch lamps...price, shipping etc. fine, no/issues Don't you just love to have an Amazon option?