Tubes: T12 and classic T5 (4, 6, 8 & 13W) are my favourite. I prefer daylight (colour 54 or 55, 765, 860 etc.) and use them almost exclusively, although I also love coloured phosphor tubes I currently don't have any.

Gear: SRS, Rapid Start and Switch Start in that order though most of my fittings are SS.

Fittings: Fitzgerald are my favourite for modern battens and Atlas for vintage, also rather like the Thorn Clippers.


BG

As for tube color I would have to say:
1. Cool White
2&3. Warm White and Daylight are kind of tied for me.

Tube type:
1.T12
2.T8
3.T10

Gear:
1. Rapid Start
2. Switch Start
3. Slimline Magnetic
4. Electronic Rapid Start (It is better than boring instant on elctronic IS)

Fixture types:
1. T12F96 slimline strip light or workshop fixture.
2. T12F40 Troffer
3. T12 Wraparounds
4. T12 strip lights

For me it would be...
Lamps:
1. T12
2. T8
3. Circlines, etc.

Colors:
1. Daylight/C50
2. Cool white
3. 3500K
4. Warm white


Lamp sizes:
1. 4' T12
2. 8' slimline
3. 4' T8
4. Shorter lamps (Less than 4') of any size

Fixtures.
1. (Vintage) shoplights.
2. 2-lamp F40 or F96 striplights
3. Wraparounds/troffers

Ballasts:
1. HPF full-power magnetic rapid start
2. Preheat
3. Magnetic instant start slimlines
4. Electronic instant-start T8s.

6500K Fluorescents all the way.

As for the Ballists, hopefully their are Energy efficient balists & Energy Star balists available which is all that I need.

What are my favorite fluorescents?  Well I have to say that one of my favorites is the 8' Slimline lamps!  I find them very intriguing, and have about 15 fixtures for them, although, only 1 is operational.  You can thank the crappy electronic ballasts for that. 

But, I do like all fluorescents, and the second one is F15T12 lamps.  Love the T12 lamps!

As far as color goes, I have to say that I like the Warm White the best!  I do like Daylight as well, but I find myself rotating between Warm White and Daylight or using a 1 Warm White and 1 Daylight lamp in a fixture.  Cool White is okay but its actually a little blah to me. Although I do have to say that I really like the CWP lamps from Sylvania though!  Have a few pairs of F40T12/CWP lamps, very nice color!

As far as ballasts goes, I pretty much like anything that is the good old magnetic stuff, none of that electronic junk. Although I have a few, but not in service.  8" slimeline magnetic ballasts are my favorite, because of the "thump" that they make when powered on!  I do love my HO fixtures with the good old rapid start magnetic ballasts, although they more or less instant start everytime with a 100W lamp.  4' lamps, I like them all!  Of course, all of mine are rapid start!  I would love to get my hands on an instant start ballast for slimeline lamps though!  I only have 1 preheat ballast for a single F40T12 lamp.  Most of my smaller lamps are all the good old fashion preheat!  A few of them are trigger start, just a few F15T12 fixtures and a few F20T12 fixtures.

For lamps, I prefer small lamps over large ones. The F4T5, F6T5, F8T5, F14T12 are my favorites, but I like any of the old-world lamps (ie. lamps not originally designed to run on an electronic ballast). I also like the 20 watt circline, 5 watt PL, and 10 watt 2D lamps.

For color temperatures, my favorite is without a doubt the Color 33 (4300k) available in Europe, and I'm luckily to have three such lamps (all F8T5) in my collection. After that, Cool White, and 5000k. 4500 White, available until some 60-odd years ago, would probably be near the top of my list, but I've never seen one, so I don't know.

For ballasts, I'm pretty much tied between preheat and rapid start, although for the latter I prefer a ballast with a lower OCV for a slower startup. And I don't mind a good quality electronic programmed-start ballast.

For lamps, my favorite is Osram Lumilux "tree" in 36 watt T8, colour 840, available mainly in Europe. Other than that, the standard 835 here in North America. I also like the 841 and the 865 colours when appropriate. For halophosphate, I like the daylight. Depending on the application, miniature old style T5 lamps as well as 2 pin PL are favorites.

For control gear, I am tied between preheat and rapid-start. I also like SRS. All flavours of electronic HF are my least favorite. I am also not a great fan of manual start preheat.

For some odd reason, I tend to prefer a lamp that does "something" at eol. Rapid start lamps glow dimly and occasionnally offer a soft flicker. Preheat flash for a while and sometimes end up with a stuck starter. These failure modes "add interest" to the eol. HF ballasts simply shut down the lamp or cause vacuum loss and the lamp is simply dark (boring). Original T5 almost always blow an electrode which ends up equally boring. I know, it's a bit strange...

My favorite fluorescent color temp is either cool white 4100k or daylight 5000-6500k. My favorite tube shape is f14 or 15 t8/12. I especially like the lifeline etch sylvanias. My fav gear is preheat or magnetic rapid start. My favorite brand is GE (pre-Indonesian) or Advance (pre-China).

Last post on this before I ever joined LG, so hope it's ok to resurrect it.

Never been a huge fluorescent tube person, but my favourite has to be the 5ft 80W warm white BC-ended tube I had on my bedroom window-sill when I was about 12..! That and the 4ft 40W Philips TL-S/TL-X tubes that were ballasted by a tungsten filament lamp.

Not got either any more, but must try and find some, if I can squeeze them in to the limited space here 

I'm not really a fan of fluorescents, they seem utilitarian and bulky to me rather than something collectible. The only thing I would like is a louvered fixture out of nostalgia for my school days. Probably my favorite tube is a 3500K T8 Sylvania, that's what I'm going to standardize on for my house.

I already mentioned about the tubes and ballasts themselves in an earlier post but in terms of the fixtures I like the old stem mounted louvered fixtures for finished areas and the turret industrial fixtures for utility/workshop areas.

At the moment these little ones that we have as lights over the bed. 

Gaash stuff from the 80s and early 90s - They may look like not much more than "ordinary" FL stuff at first, but once you handle them you can tell that they are really good. 1600, 4400, Speedpack, EM lights, and some of the more rare things i didnt even know existed until quite recently. Also the Gaash Paz troffers from late 90s / early 00s

Warm white, daylight (halo phosphate variants not the modern stuff) , any colored lamps ANY... I count cool green and grolux and market light plus as colored lamps too.. Small T5 lamps (4, 6, 8 watts), Cfl's, woods glass black light lamps, Clear (non germicidal) lamps. Anything with the old fancy end caps and poisonous phosphor (like my Mazda tube), power grooves. Circline too

I do not necessarily care for the ubiquitous cool white lamps. Although I still collect them because they are after all... Fluorescent.. But I prefer other color Temps. At the more extreme warm and cool ends up the spectrum.

对于镇流器，我最喜欢的应该还是预热启动型电感镇流器，在中国，电感镇流器只有这一种类型。灯管的话T9,T8和T5，T10和T12也喜欢，在中国已经买不到了，停产了...最喜欢的是CRI 80以上，色温4000K最喜欢，我房间里的灯管是5200K，日本进口。