CFLs are hopefully just an intermediate step towards better devices. Lead joints in LEDs are an issue I didn't know of.
Of course, both of these are still better solutions than lightbulbs, from a pure pollution standpoint - IF you dispose of them properly. CFLs have a much longer lifespan than lightbulbs and so you won't be tossing nearly as many units. LEDs have a longer lifespan still. You just have to be able to recycle them. With any luck, you'll be able to take them back the day you go get some more to help replenish your stocks.
The light can indeed be bad. I have seen some CFL lights with terrible light wavelength output, very blue. CFL light that's more blue than an incadescent is fine; nowadays when I walk into a room with incadescent it feels rather too orange and dim. As has been said before - the shorter wavelength of the blue light makes it easier to see things. In the summer it's also nicer because they aren't creating the sheer amount of heat of incadescents (too bad we don't have any bulbs appropriate for a chandelier).
What designers really need to do is create bulbs with varying wavelengths, and some with light closer to the sun than we've seen before. In a ground-floor room in my house, there are small incadescents in a chandelier and a LCD monitor with its color temperature set low (more orange, more "warm" like the sun). This is a decent color setup for that place because the artificial light doesn't contrast with natural light. However, the CFLs don't currently replicate it (and one strange-sounding, but perhaps understandable, objection to CFLs is that the bulbs aren't found in as pleasing shapes as you can find incadescents - CFLs in a chandelier look strange).
Back to CRTs for a moment:
Sony Trinitron tubes were made with a resolution at least as high as 1920x1440 (yes, you read that right - that's the resolution of the P992, a Dell-branded Sony Trinitron from early this decade).
Trinitrons that have a color tint may just need to be adjusted. Now, the Sony / Dell P992 is a computer monitor, so it may be different than a TV, but its settings can be adjusted via WinDAS (Digital Alignment Software) software by plugging an ECS cable into your computer's RS-232 port and then into the (usually hidden and covered) data port of the monitor. The P992 has this; I found mine (although still waiting on the cable sold from this place; they also have instructions on doing this).
Basically, instead of complaining that your television has a terrible picture, hunt down the service manual and see how you can adjust the output to be more correct.