I am reading a funny book at the moment by Robert B. Cialdini. The title is: Influence, science and practice.
Its about how we are influenced by professional people in marketing and sales, every day every where.
The interesting part is that what they do is to use sertainelements of the human behaviour and mind to trigger our desire for things.
The reason why I am writing about this, is that what the reaction you show in the post above Bob George is described in the book. The principle he describe is the desire created by scarcity. When something is limited in numbers, rare or hard to get its percieved as more desirable and more valuable. In the book they describe what happend when there was a ban on detergents that contained a type of cemical. Even if the arguments against using the chemical was well documented and explained, the ban caused a great deal of anger. And it resulted in people doing a lot to get this detergent.
In the book there are a lot of funny examples of how people act when things are sensored, banned or restiricted- but they all tell the same story. People get more interested and positive towards what is restricted after its become difficult to get it.
So in a way, your argument about letting people decide for themself is reasonable. However- my rather pessimistic view on peoples ability to choose wisely makes me think that laws and bans may be the only option some times.
Human kind has had a bad tendency to make blunders of magnificent proportions, so some regulations might not be a bad idea. Even if it means switching lightbulbs. A small sacrifice for man, concidering what we are up against?