In my opinion, Roof mounted LED bars are the truck equivalent of ricers putting 55w 6500k HID conversions into their factory dual-filament halogen reflector headlights on their honda civics. The output is excessively bright, a useless color temperature, and the beam pattern is absolutely destroyed. They throw more light to the sides and up in the air than actually hits the road, and there is no high/low beam. Just on and off. Make your headlights useless to the driver, annoying to other drivers, and dangerous for everyone, especially when the weather turns bad. All for the "cool" factor.
The only LEDs I run on my truck are on the rack, and they point to the sides and back for reverse and area lighting. They are tied into reverse lamps via diode, and a manual switch for area/work light. I don't care for the color, but it's a sacrifice I'm willing to make for the reduced battery drain with the engine off.
Power consumption is, to an extent, irrelevant for road illumination, since the engine is always running while driving.
I'll stick with my setup. 3x Q4509s and 2x 4313s, mounted in some good tough tractor light housings. (Not cheapies from harbor freight)
I honestly disagree. I have a roof mounted 50" light bar on my suburban. Albeit if I had to do it over again, I would maybe go for a smaller one (However that would look odd on my full size suburban width.)
I did have a small(30") light bar mounted on my bumper in the grille, but found it blocked the precious airflow to my transmission cooler (And wouldnt fit when I added an aux transmission cooler fan). With the thule, solar, and axe/shovel mount on the roof, the air was already being disturbed, so I saw it is a natural place for the light. Of course, as mentioned you have to do it right, moved slightly back for glare and do some testing for whistiing/ sound. Saying that people using these on the road is a whole other issue....
The $150 I spent on a black friday cheap chinese ebay 50" light bar, is one of the better investments I've made to the truck. I had planned on using it, to see if I like it and then replace with with a $$$ Rigid bar if it worked for me. Three years later that hasn't happened because it's still going strong. Seeing how most of our trips, we arrive to the forest at night due to work commitments, it is used every time we are offroad, and while there are possibly "better" lights that throw better, or have a slightly better color temperature, it was hard to beat the price.. Between the light bar, high beams, and a few rock/proximity lights in the bumper I am extremely happy, and don't find it unnecessary at all.
Again, this is one of those things, where it looks the part, and the crappy thing is many people don't use their rigs to it's potential so seeing them on mall rigs is annoying. However, who cares? Posers aren't stopping me from putting fender flares, an exhaust and wider tires on my track car, because I am worried about people judging me on the rare times I am driving it to the store.
Is a 50" lightbar on my truck necessary? No, and also has some downsides in certain applications. Would a 30" in the grill suffice? Probably, and also has downsides in certain applications.
In the end, read about your options, think it out for YOUR uses, while using the advice others have while applying it to your use (Example the glare). I had a problem with what I had, weighed out the options, and saw a solution. This may be different than what your problem and solutions may be, as it may be different then the problem and solution the guy who mall crawls does (he just wants to look cool). Good for him, if that's what he/her bought his/her truck for, fine by me, as long as they enjoy it.
Saying all that, my addition to the hate on the LED bars is that the LED lights, in a serious snow storm, don't create enough heat to melt the snow/ ice from building up in front of them.
