Actually, nothing beats HID's - either a retrofit kit with European code reflectors, or Projector HID's.
The issue at hand is the bulb's glass coloration. It actually absorbs effective light and can reduce the amount of light that's visible to the eye, providing the stock bulb and the new bulb are the same wattage.
I've got a work in progress writeup that has a bunch of charts on the bottom. You'll see that color temps (measured in Kelvin) affect the useable light output. In one of the charts, you'll see that higher temp Kelvin HID lamps (10000 Kelvin) put out up to half of the useable light that standard temp bulbs will (4300 Kelvin).
The same principle goes for standard Halogen bulbs. The less coating on the bulb (or no coating on the bulb), the more light you get that you can use.
My recommendation - get yourself higher wattage H13/9008 bulbs, and modify the harness to use a relay setup. Nokya has a 100/80 watt H13/9008 bulb you can use. This site carries them:
http://www.coolbulbs.com/nokya.asp
Duh - I also forgot to add the link to the chart. Go here and scroll to the bottom.
http://24.248.84.138/hummers/headlig...visionplus.htm