Is whether it lights to full brightness or not the ultimate test on whether a LPS lamp and ballast is good or not, or are there more nuances. Are these lamps good or no? Most of the lamps from my haul are "well used" if they work at all, it's obvious the city gave up maintaining the installation some time ago (I've only found one lamp that appears close to new, (a 135 watt) and were not gentle throwing them into the truck when they were removed.

1) A metal clip thing by the electrodes is loose

2) flickering is coming from the electrodes even after lamp is warmed up.

3) The initial orange glow seems to come from below rather than at one of the electrodes on one side, an initial green glow at the very base of the lamp

4) Noticeable blackening around the electrodes.

5) A bit of sodium splatter inside the tube

Also, are bases repairable either by me or something with better motor skills then me? I Have a number of lamps where the apparent problem is one of the metal contacts on the base is partially or fully missing?

Finally, one of my fixtures started smoking when I turned it on, seems the socket was shorted out. Is that ballast now defective or if it still works it should be OK? Are loud ballasts (many of the 55 watters are like this to varying degrees) OK or no?

If it lights up normally without drawing excessive current I would call it good, if the capacitor is bad it might appear to work but draw more current and burn up the ballast or light dimly or not at all. The burnt up socket is probably the result of dirt/salt/moisture contamination. The lamp bases should be fixable as long as the glass is intact, looks like contacts are just solder blobs. Worst case you could probably swap the base from a dead bulb.

Has the magic white smoke escaped.? If so then it's probably EoL