[s-cars] Headlights aging?

[Varon H. Fugman]

When I got my '95 S6 almost 3 years ago, I was delighted with the
headlights, especially the high beams.  They were so good I was amazed that
they were US DOT legal!  I couldn't understand why someone would spend $600
to upgrade to Euro lamps.

However, 3 years later I'm not as pleased with them.  They are still good,
but not great any more.  What happened?  Here are my theories:

1. The stock S6 lamps are so much better than my old car's headlights that
they seemed fantastic at first.  Now I've gotten used to them and want more!

2. They aren't putting out as much light as they used to either through (a.)
aging of the bulbs and/or (b.) a film collecting on the inside of the lens.

3. I'm do more night driving on country roads that I used to and I need/want
better lighting.

I'm trying to figure out if I should try the lens cleaning procedure (I read
through the procedure and was a little leery of breaking open the headlight
assemblies) or just starting thinking about upgrading.  Of course, unless I
get whole new lenses I'd want to clean them anyway, right?  For those that
have done the lens cleaning, how dramatic was the improvement?

Varon "thinking about HID"
'95 urS6