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Other people will have more and better information...

But I've had good luck in my Acura with Sylvania Silverstar bulbs, which I bought on eBay for pretty cheap. It's been years since I've futzed around with my headlights, but they have always been plenty bright and with a long life. Just remember to wear some sort of gloves when installing the bulbs -- the oils in your fingers will harm the coating of the bulb, and when it heats up it'll burn out really quickly. I did that by mistake before and the bulb lasted a few days. The replacement (correctly installed) is probably about 5 years now.

I'm not sure what new technologies or products might be out there that are better than these, or if this is even helpful.

A little more info:

White and blue xenon are basically the same thing, just the glass of the bulb is tinted a bit. Xenon is the gas that is inside the bulb, which is excited by the electricity and converts that energy to light. "Normal" bulbs are filled with halogen. The only difference is the gas that the bulb is filled with, so all of these are plug-and-play.

If you want straight-up as bright as possible, go for white xenon. Blue xenon is not quite as bright, but gives a little less glare and softens the reflections and make things a little easier to see. There's also like a "hybrid" that's in-between -- I've heard of, but have not used, Osram Night Breaker headlights. I think that alleges they are the best of both worlds. No clue on price.

The other kind of headlight that's popular now is HID (high intensity discharge). They look like this (the left is HID, the right is standard halogen):


HID's are super bright, but with a short range and a very sharp (and well-defined) cutoff (literally a straight line in the near horizon). I've driven a few cars with these, and found I had to use the high beams pretty often. Maybe this technology has changed over the years.

HID lights require adapter kits and a bunch o' work to retrofit. I wouldn't recommend it for your needs.

Headlight restoration kits....... they work . I've tried it twice ( on 2 differnet cars) and am batting 1000. All they do is remove the oxidation of the plastic and then you polish it with a very fine grit sandpaper and then you use a sealeant to protect your newly polished plastic. Everything need was included in the kits. $20.00 for each kit . It was worth the time and effort to me.

Joe,
It's been several years since I've used one of these kits but it seems like to me the chemical treatment of the lens to remove the oxidation was first and then ( I am making an assumption here ) the sandpaper was used to "polish" the lens. Perhaps it's the chemical soaked cloth that did all the work and really not the sandpaper and that's why just using the sandpaper didn't work for you.

Bloke,

When you get the replacement bulbs try not to get your fingerprints on the actual "glass" part of the bulb. The oil from your fingers can compromise the "glass" and significantly reduce the longevity of the bulb. If you do accidentally touch the glass, clean it with an alcohol wipe.

Also, you'll find that one side is "easy" to change while the other is "hard."