I think Van hit on a point: LEDs are monochromic, much like a laser! Because of that, they do not have a color temperature. It's almost like we are lost, without a home base! For the most part, in lighting, we start with a light source of a specific color temperature (Black Body radiator heated to X k) and we filter it to suit our needs. With LEDs, we synthesize light by mixing the three detectable frequencies into something we perceive as white that has a mathematical equivalent of a color temperature. Depending on exactly what our eyes perceive* as the RGB core frequencies (and that differs from human to human!) , they may look very strange to some people! I am reminded of what I would hear from audiophiles when CDs first came out. "They sound artificial." Many of the tech people would laugh at these audiophiles and tell them they were crazy, but I think they were noticing something. Different people hear differently. The cynic (a guy from Philips /NAP) told me: "That's because without all the background noise and distortion you have no place to set the dynamic range in your mind." He might be right. Who knows. CD's won out because they were more
practical, and CD players dropped from over $1000, to $45. Still, his line reminds me of the issue of color temperature. Maybe LEDs seam to be an "unnatural" because they have no natural color temperature! (exempt "white" LEDs, that are a phosphor hybrid and do have a color temp.) As for the long term forecast, I think they will follow the course of CDs for the same exact reasons. (Although there are still people who swear by their vinyl record collections, and will never give them up.)
* Color Perceived: Apparently, the cones on our retina vary in frequency sensitivity in that "true red" or "true blue" is perceived at slightly different frequencies from person to person. There were many articles written about this in relation to photography. For example, to the Asian eye, "white" tends to be a cooler color balance then to the European eye. We had a problem with broadcast video equipment coming over from a Japanese vendor that had a bluish tint. When we contacted a factory rep, he basically indicated that they had been balanced for their domestic market and not the American version of white! I'll always remember that one!