Thanks for your extensive and thoughtful response.
Infrastructures do tend to change slowly.
Do flurorescent light fixtures tend to have ground faults? Do the ballast
transformers short to the can? Or is their propensity to this common to all
transfomers, motors, etc.?
I suppose that a "hot" (floating) fluorescent fixture, mounted in the high
ceiling of an industrial warehouse would threaten nobody except the
electrician who might stumble into working on it. While this certainly is a
significant threat, it's not as bad as a threat to the general, unwitting
public.
If compact fluorescent lamps can turn an ordinary two-wire desk lamp into a
"hot tamale," then this indeed calls for GFCI electrification all around the
house. It also raises a call for an investigation by UL, CSI, TÜV, etc.
Just as hairdryers seem to have their own GFCI protections, then perhaps
fluorescent desk lamps should, too.
I've seen fluorescent replacement fixtures for light bulbs, but I haven't
bought one yet. If such a fixture screws into an ordinary light bulb
socket,
then there's no way it could make the whole lamp body hot. But if the
little box at the base of the fluorescent fixture should be hot, and
somebody touches it, then a GFCI could detect even a slight ground fault and
interrupt the circuit.

"Gideon" wrote

My only reservation for other GFCI applications in my home is the compact
fluorescent lamps that I've got on some circuits. Obviously I'll check
them
for nuisance tripping before installing GFCIs on those particular outlets.