Tony Hwang wrote:

Hi,
Came across a 23W dimmable CFL. Got one to try it out.
It worked ~2 hours and pop, it went to full brightness and
no more dimmable??!! Are they this unreliable? Or I got bad one.

I expect you got a dud. The dimmable CFL I experimented with seemed to
work fine. It also performed a lot better after a day of full on burn in
period which I presume helped get all the mercury vaporized and the
phosphors settled.