mjelic wrote:They don't actually get any brighter. So what's the point of HID lights, exactly?
That depends on the design of the projector. A really good projector has a hot spot of light in the centre of the beam and the shield intersects this, blocking 40-60% of the output. When the shield flips out of the way for high beam then that blocked light is allowed to escape and the area above the cutoff line is lit. However, some projectors are optimised for low beam, meaning that more of the light is allowed past in low beam and there is less for high beam. Alternately the hot spot is much larger and therefore less intense, giving a better, more even, spread of light. This is somewhat the case with the projectors in the Triton.
To add to the problem, the Triton's bulbs are limited to 25W, rather than the usual 35W. This means that they comply with the regulations that allow HIDs without self levelling and washers, provided output is less than 2000 lumens.
Now all this seems to indicate that the Triton's HIDs are crap, but they're not. At 2000lm the light output is more than double that of the halogen variety, meaning that there is actually quite a lot of light being projected on to the road ahead.