It's a hard question to answer because it depends entirely on how you intend on growing. If you want to grow out a couple of plants to full size, you're probably better of going with the cfls'. If however you want to try SOG (Sea of Green) growing which is basically growing out just rooted clones which keeps their height under about 18 inches, then the T5 VHO's would provide an interesting and probably more effective alternative to either CFL's or HID systems. VHO T5's come in an interesting variety of colour temperatures and the PURple variety probably has the highest PAR output of any fluorescent system.

When used correctly, both T5 VHO's and CFL's can produce very acceptable results. Which you choose depends entirely on how you intend growing.