"Catastrophe"? I thought I was going to read that it had fallen on your head! Now THAT would be a catastrophe! But I can understand your frustration. Read this story about the Energy Policy Act of 2005. Not a hopeful situation. The problem is that ceiling fans with lights were created to provide ambient lighting, not main lighting. Before I updated my ceiling fans, the one in my DR was an old-fashioned-looking one with somewhere between 4-6 chandelier bulbs. The fan had the tulip-shaped glass bulb covers that pointed down. Have you looked into whether a fan like this--with multiple bulbs pointing DOWN--would give you enough light? Also, have you been to other lighting shops in your area, or maybe a specialty ceiling fan shop? (Which are getting rare; one in my D.C. area shut recently, and now Expo Design Center is closed, too, and that store used to have a lot of ceiling fans up and running so you could judge the lighting and fan noise. Alas...) And although this would be a time-consuming effort, you should try calling major fan makers (Hunter-Douglas, Casablanca, Modern Fan Company, etc) and tell customer service about your problem finding a fan with good-enough lighting. They should be able to get a product specialist to figure out what could work. Here is a link that might be useful: energy policy act

I have done this with several fans: take the fan down, take as much apart as possible. Spray paint the metal parts with chrome spray paint (ends up looking liked brushed nickel). Replaced the glass shades with nice inexpensive ones from Walmart. Usually this ends up costing about $10. If the blades are ugly, you can replace those too, but I never found the need for that. One fan I "transformed" had an ugly gold design on the blades, but I flipped them over so the blades were just plain wood, much better. You might be able to do it without taking the fan apart, but I think it probably looks better if you do.

A few more pics

Does your new fan have a remote control? You might be able to just wire the two wires on the fan to your one switch, and control the fan and light separately with the pull chains on the fan. I have the reverse problem - I bought a new "high efficiency, DC motor" fan, with remote control. I have two circuits to the fan box, but can't separate the wires in the fan to use the circuits independently. Older style fans, with pull chains can be wired separately, but not the new ones.