With LEDs you're trading a higher initial investment for longer lamp life and lower operating costs. The big unknown is that lamp life, maybe they last 50,000 hours, maybe they don't. The energy savings is a pretty simple calculation. I have CFL lamp in my porch light that's been there for 5+ years. That's five years of dusk to dawn operation, 365 days per year. I've also had CFLs fail in under a month.

The good news is that most incandescent/halogen cans can accept a LED lamps or a retrofit of LED lamp/trim. So you can go with an incandescent fixture now and transition to LEDs down the road as the price drops and the technology is a bit more proven.

Stick with name brand fixtures to maximize you options in the future.

I second what mike_kaiser wrote. Install the regular recessed fixtures and then install a LED bulb. I bought a Cree CR6 bulb (EcoSmart brand from Home Depot) to try out in our 6" fixtures. It was an easy retrofit. I've seen lots of positive feedback on those bulbs, so I might just bite the bullet and put them in the rest of our recessed fixtures.

to mike-kaiser and gpraceman, thank you for responding. Both of you have been really helpful. At least now I have a better understanding of the fixtures and bulbs.

To clarify my comments a bit, this is what I tried out. It is a bulb and trim combo. So far, DW and I like the looks better than the incandescent bulbs. You also cannot see past the bulb and into the fixture, like with an incandescent bulb.

You can have your electricians install regular recessed fixtures but not install any trim. Then install one of these bulb/trim combos. The other option is to have them go ahead and install regular trim and get the LED bulbs that look like floodlight bulbs.