I only gave my first LED flowered harvest 9 out of the 12 weeks it should have had, and the buds were definitely not fluffy then (even the popcorn is much more impressive than my HPS popcorn ever was). I am pretty sure the fluffy you speak of is another issue that only really follows crappy LED panels around. I agree they are especially better for vegging (cause you can save so much power and heat production) and because even most crappy LEDs will veg well enough, but I completely disagree with LED not being capable of flowering cannabis. Plenty of people who have been running HID for years and tried a GOOD led panel were convinced. I'd say at least 75% of the people I've read use a good LED said they were likely to switch to LED completely except during the winter when they would need the heat from HID.You still get smaller, fluffy buds.
LED's can't touch a 600w HPS either really. I've never run a system that used smaller than 600w hps's so IDK about that.
The only thing people really need to know about LED's is this - they are a great way to save $ for vegging, but don't flower with them. End of story.
I don't see how anyone who's ran a decent HPS system and tried LED's can dispute that.
Again, the problem is people haven't seen enough of the grows with good LED products. Years of companies misleading about the wattage and potential of their lights has damaged LEDs rep. Although I suppose it probably deserved most of it until the last 12-18months when huge strides were made and now instead of 3-4 wavelength 1w no lens panels everywhere, we will start to see 3w diode full spectrum panels with tight lens angles. In the next couple years it will be very difficult for anyone to say that LED can't flower. It won't take years because the tech isn't capable now, its because people still need to buy and grow with them because they don't believe or don't know which can actually flower well.
Here are some pics of my plants I spoke of, not that impressive. I with the grow I have going now that started 12/12 a little over a week ago. These pics are at various stages, again plants were only given 9 weeks of 12/12 when all but 2 were rated as 12 week strains. I ended their season short because my patient was going to need the supply, and I wanted to get started on her Rick Simpson's Cure supply grow. I can't seem to find my harvest day pics, those oldest pics here are 3/19 but I harvest them 12 days later.