UPDATE:
3 items:
1. Price!!!
Nashbar dropped their price to $327 and after 10% coupon that equals under $300!!! They have a price guarantee if they sell it less than you bought it for in the last 15 days. Waiting for them to confirm price change.
2. ryanparrish:
You make a valid point. While you do not need lights on parts of my ride, when I get into Queens and ride along the ocean, there are stretches without lights. Also, I doubt your roads have nearly as many serious imperfections that would cause you to take a spill if you were not prepared for them. These include, significant potholes, construction cutouts, glass, dead animals (ok, not dangerous, but nasty) Could my ride be done without an HID? Yes. Safely at 20+ mph? No way. Nothing else has given me the confidence to ride knowing I will see things in time to aovid them. Even high cost LED's are very narrow beams which miss a lot. As a matter of fact, the guy who convinced me to go HID in the first place asked about my backup. He lives where there are no street lights. I told him if I lost the HID I have a blinkie for safety and could safely do my commute at 8-10 mph. Not practical daily, but workable in an emergency.
3. Second impression
My impression now is awesome. You see anything in the road that you might want to avoid. It's weird, I was riding last night and trying to identify items in the road while judging if I have enough time to aovid them. Absolutely no problem. I was not "blown away" as others have been by the brightness so much as I was by the fact that everything is clearly visible well in fron of you.
The clock changes this weekend and my riding season would have ended abruptly Saturday. Now I can continue for as long as I'm comfortable with the temperature. Is the price steep, absolutely. It's half what I paid for my bike. I am still trying to justify the cost, but in the meantime, I'm still riding and that's what's important to me.