I have been wondering as of the last 4 months if the M250R2 is in the PROCESS of being retired.  I ask this because in the Marion, IL Ameren operations center, it appears as though they have replaced the M250R2 250w HPS luminaires with M400R3 250w PSMH & 400w HPS luminaires.  In replacing cobra heads around here, where an M2RR or M2RC would go, an MSRL25 is being put up instead.  It's been 4 months since I last saw an M250R2 installed.  Old M250R2s that die are being replaced by '40' HPS luminaires or '25' PSMH (with sodium lamps installed in both.) But no new '25' HPS M250R2 have been installed.  Now, I know the M400R3s are about double the price of an M250R2, so I'm simply wondering why.  Now any new 400w M400R3 has a Yellow NEMA tag indicating it is for use with HPS lamps, and they are bright as a gasoline fueled fire.  The 250w M400R3 has the Red/White '25' NEMA tag indicating it should have a PSMH lamp installed, but a HPS lamp is ALWAYS installed, and it "appears" dimmer than the same lamp does in the M250R2. (I mean it looks more like a 150w-200w HPS, but it is fully warmed up).  So back to the original question.  Is GE or Ameren in the process of retiring the M250R2 to make more room for the Evolve family?  Sorry this is so long, but I wanted to be thorough.

http://www.gelighting.com/LightingWeb/na/solutions/outdoor-lighting/street-roadway/index.jsp

The M250R2, still appearing on their website.

The M400R2 still shows up on their website but they no longer produce that fixture or the M400A2.  I know the M250R2 is still produced, but I am wondering if it is on its way out.

Shockingly enough, it sounds like GE will be discontinuing ALL non LED fixtures sometime this year.    What makes it worse is that a lot of their LED lights aren't that good (The GE Evolves are by far the worst LED lights in existence IMO). GE is going to the dogs, and it sounds like Cooper might be next (but hopefully not). American Electric has no plans of discontinuing any of their HID lights thankfully.

Why are the GE LEDs the worst?

-They have a high failure rate compared to other models (I have counted 5 dead within the past week compared to 2 of the AEL fixtures dead)
-Very poor light quality (comparable to a cheap LED flashlight
-EXTREMELY glary when approached from the side. They were trying to design them so that they light a strip of road like a drop lens cobrahead, instead they created a possible road hazard.
-They don't light the road as effectively. While they are brighter than the HPS lights, the area they light is much narrower and smaller, leaving a lot of underlit areas on the residential streets. (The "outdated" HPS lights lit the roads just fine, but they stopped maintaining them and "mysteriously" the crime rates have gone up.
-They are ugly (well OK maybe that doesn't count from a technical standpoint)

Points 3 and 4 apply to virtually all LED road lighting...