well let's see... the plain old halogen on the left costs about $8 each, so about $16 a pair, but you can get better halogens (like Sylvania Silverstars) for $35 and up per pair. the HIDs were $35 for a pair including slim ballasts (35w, 5000k). the LEDs are about $25-35 for a pair - no ballast required.
i agree the beam pattern isn't as good on the LEDs, but that's fine for high beams and DRLs. So far I haven't gotten flashed for the LED low beams, but i also know i need to polish the haze off the plastic headlight housings. that will probably help the beam pattern immensely. with the HIDs i had a decent cutoff, but it was obvious that the haze is scattering a lot of light.