If you had a certain local NH State Trooper, who has pulled me over to hassle me about the angle of my plate and lack of turn signals (after a dirt ride, I take 'em off, so I don't break 'em off) then you would too. He's a total hard *** who see's the law as black and white.
The NH state motto should be changed from Live free or die to Live, freeze and die!

Post up some pictures when you get it mounted. Are you going to use the stock gauge cluster or are you using a Vapor?

 

I don't know about your HID, halogen, LED assessment. For the last several years our dirt riding club has helped put on 2 baja truck races per year out at our riding area in west Texas...Baja Racing of Texas. One of those events is a 12-hour race that finishes at midnight, so a good deal of night racing occurs on our 42-mile course. Our land owner, a 7 victories in a row baja winner in his class, has a full blown trophy truck and 2 other slightly lower class trucks himself. At our night races, I've seen most of these trucks are running HID and LED lights. I see fewer halogen lights. LED lights have had massive jumps in technology each year, and it seems to be evidenced in how many trucks are running them now. Our racers come from all the U.S., so it doesn't appear to be a local thing. The Jesse James desert team even won one of our night events. He was running a combination of HID and LED lighting, and I'm pretty sure he can afford any light system out there.

Not trying to be argumentative but just stating what I've seen. I also think it's fairly factual that HID and LED lights are less vibration sensitive than halogens. I'm an MTB'er too and currently work as a mechanic at a friend's local bicycle shop in my retired years for fun. I agree that there's no question about LED superiority for cycling at this point.

 

Here's an interesting little read for your consideration...

MotorcycleJazz - A funny thing happened on the way to

 

That is very true about voltage drops and HID's. The HID light isn't burning out. The arc is failing to jump because of low voltage, so it just goes out until voltage is high enough to jump the gap again...kind of like a spark in a spark plug. I wouldn't run HID on a motorcycle that didn't have a highly modded electrical system in the output and wiring quality. Frankly, these days I wouldn't run anything but LED lights in the high output aftermarket selection available for a motorcycle. The discussion in my previous post was about light quality as indicated by DT175MX's post title. As always, there are many other factors to consider, and for motorcycles it's the ability to power high output lights. This is where LED technology has made major leaps in just a few short years. It's been interesting to see more and more LED light bars at our night racing events than HID or halogen sets. Baja vehicles usually don't have a problem powering high output systems of any kind, so I'm pretty sure they like the quality of light they're getting from LED lights.

Many stock motorcycle electrical systems on many DS bikes can be challenged by a 100 watt light...HID or halogen. This is why some very good, high output LED systems are popular for motorcycles.

 

And this is why some of us refer to TNC as "OZ."

 

I'm sticking with the 55w Halogen light which will be three times brighter than the stock which is more than I need (I also have a little DOT Approved decal to put on it too). The HID's just cause too much glare and reflection (snow storm effect) off the desert floor which is very crystalline in nature and dusty. I should have it this coming Monday so I'll post pics soon.

 

TNC - Lots of different things to consider and I certainly would not quarrel with your experience. Of course if there are lots of dirtbikes riding together, it's an advantage to have the brightest lights (just like having the most HP).
LEDs are also claimed to be the closest match to daylight (although halogen is more similar to fire light, which our eyes have evolved to work quite well with).

For MTB I run a wide beam cold lamp on the bars and a narrow beam warm lamp on the helmet. The eyes don't seem to care much about quality for peripheral vision, but they do like the warmer colour for focussing on.

My poor experience with HIDs and cold coloured LEDs is that it's difficult to differentiate between mud and hard ground and also more difficult to guage the severity of slippery roots etc. Maybe this is a non issue at high speed in a dry environment?

The other consideration is beam focus - too much light too tighly focussed just causes the pupils to close up and then it's hard to see the peripheral stuff.

BTW, I have just fitted a DRL (Cree cold LEDs) to my KLX. I was having a lot of problems with dopey car drivers not seeing the bike. Early results are that motorists are much more aware of me approaching and treat the bike with more respect. I run it off the city light connector, it uses about the same power.