You haven't seen but have you ran modern LEDs even one time?
We can assume your lack of "seeing proof" stems from your inability to try for yourself? Hence why I offer the 1ft² trial run, try it one time then come back and let's discuss.
Having ran large HID rooms I can offer you my opinion in that I feel the exact opposite of what you offer, only my opinion has a bit of credibility as I've tried all of these things.
LEDs are still expensive, i'll give you that much.
I have friends growing with led. But you are right to say I don't know what I could do with them. Their weed is not better than mine and it didn't get better when they switched to led.
I am only running a few lights here. A larger Grow has very different things to consider.
But I am happy with my quality now and it is still going up as I practice so I haven't even peaked on what I can do with the tools I have now.
So it's a question of up front costs for any small advantage for me.
I am much more considering adding a 315 cmh in between my 2 600's as an upgrade than even supplementing with led. Of course I have fully tested a 315 already.
For the blue light and uv added it makes more sense in my situation. I can use the extra heat here too and adding the 315 didn't make my cooling bill go up barely at all as the room is well ventilated to begin with.
But I am not against the lamps or anything. I just want real facts not hype.
And I have learned in this thread that I will need 90% of the watts I run now to get similar or better results.
Not enough savings to buy new lighting in my situation but very informative this has been compared to the 40-60% of the wattage I see claimed constantly.
My lamps and ballasts are 3-4 years old. I will be considering new lights at some point in the near future anyway.
Then I will research current led to buy and run a comparison to my old blockbuster and 600 hortilux.
Or I will just take up sewing and finally relax.