No, there is no consensus :)

I'm curious what you mean by "true grow bulbs" though, if not the plant & aquarium bulbs?

Well when I buy "grow" bulbs the light is decidedly purple or pinkish purple. The plant and aquarium bulbs that I've been able to find look more like a cool white light to the naked eye than the grow bulb. You could use the p&a bulb as regular room lighting and no one would know. I've also seen wide spectrum grow bulbs that look mostly purple, almost like a toned down black light. You get used to the color but it's obviously different unlike the p&a bulbs.

I have a Phillips plant and aquarium which is

sorry, I cut off my statement by accident. The Phillips is labebed plant and aquarium where as I've heard the "agro" is also called plant and aquarium but has a different spectrum. It all gets very confusing after a while.

The other one I have is a GE pl/aq-us which is obviousl not their grow bulb that I'm told is / was called gro-n-sho or something similar but seems to be discontinued.

The GE Plant & Aquarium is a grow light by your definition, but they added just enough green to make it look white rather than pink. As you can imagine, most of the difference in naming these fluorescent lights is marketing. For example, the GE P&A spectrum is basically very similar to the old Chroma 50 spectrum, a little less green and a little more red. Check out the link to compare the spectra of various GE lights, pay close attention to the axis scales.

Here is a link that might be useful: GE light spectra

so was the extra light added without sacrificing what the old narrower grow bulbs could do? More light without loosing the best spectrum is good, more light as a compromise is bad. If the former then you'd be crazy to spend more on grow bulbs when a PA is good enough at half the price (or better as some websites claim since the plant gets a wider spectrum and there is debate over how they handle that).

I realize I'm bumping a very old thread, but have read a few of the Plant/Aquarium light threads and am more confused than ever.

The cool whites I have are 3150 lumens 2 for $4
The Plant/Aquarium I can get are 1900 lumens $5 ea

It also seems the p/a light might not be beneficial since I absolutely don't want my toms flowering before they get outside.

Purely from an indoor starting perspective would there be any benefit to mix in [cw p/a] [cw cw] [p/a cw] 6 bulbs I hope that makes sense.

Well I couldn't wait to hear your inputs, I added a 3rd light and splurged on the premium cool white this time. $6 for 2, only 150 extra lumens but 500 more hours of life. I mixed them [cw-pcw][cw-cw][pcw-cw].

I still have room for at least 2 more fixtures in this same area, and will be going to five by next year if not this year, so I'd still like to hear some inputs about the p/a bulbs as I might intersperse them in w/ the rest.

Irrespective of the merits of CFLs I have noticed that
since the OP a couple of years ago CFLs have surged in popularity.

My spouse has ten gallon tanks with covers that took two of the long extended incandescents. She recently found tiny CFLs that will fit into the spaces for the incandescents. It is to soon to make any comment except they are 6500K and make the plants in the aquarium look good.

I'm back, and here's what I've found. Screw it, buy a good fl. light bulb and have at it. I haven't seen a big difference in plant growth between daylight, regular warm, and pl and aq lights. In theory I'd say combine different types but plants have evolved to accept a wide variety of light. For tubes I'm still getting p&a and for ones by lamps I get daylight. The p&a makes the plants look good, the daylight makes a nice glow over them that doesn't cause glare, and both work fine.

On a side note for my personal vision I've taken to using half daylight and half warm white in my ceiling fans. It looks funny but it gives off a nice clear light. My family wasn't easily convinced. The warm lights are too yellow and the daylight give off a blue light that is a bit weird on the eyes.

Thanks for the feed back, so you are using the p/a tubes for seed starting? So far so good w/ the cool white that I've got in place but it's really too soon to tell.

I've used the p/a tubes for a year or 2.... no noticable difference on my plants at all. Now I'm just using a mix of cool and warm tubes.

My understanding is that it really depends on WHAT you want the plants to do.
If you are just starting transplants, for planting outside....then use the cheap cool white/warm white fluoros.
If you want flowering, fruiting plants then you need to upgrade to a better, fuller spectrum of light.
I personally have used the cheap fluoros for tomato/pepper/annual transplants for years and they work just fine. The trick is to keep the plant close to the light source.
Good Luck,
flora2b