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As a senior citizen, we all know that our eyes aren't what they used to be -- our irises cannot open up as wide as in younger people, and this is complicated by the fact that when our irises open, it reduces our depth of field which is basically for far-sightedness. Together, it means that we can't read the close dash gauges clearly (especially the odometer and such).
So having established my need, I also should add that a problem with using higher wattage bulbs is that it draws more current through the rheostat (or potentiometer), and this could overheat and destroy it (see below the picture for a sidebar on how I know that).
In order to deal with all this, my solution was to change the gauge faces, rather than resort to brighter bulbs. Dave Barton makes custom gauge faces, so he made me a set of faces (below) with a very bright face. Although this picture was taken in daylight, I think you can still see the bright effect -- and as a result, I have no trouble reading my gauges, even with the rheostat set at halfway:
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About the matter of using brighter bulbs.
A while back I had a Mercedes (along with my Volvos), and there was an issue where the dealer's tech people had to pull my instrument panel for a repair. Being thorough and thoughtful, the tech put in all new bulbs before reinstalling the panel. But shortly after that, driving at night, suddenly all the dash lights (everything!) went out (and it wasn't the fuse). Back at the dealer, they found that the dimmer rheostat had actually melted (a solder joist on it just gave way and the thing just fell apart). So in went a new one. A couple of days later, same thing happened -- back to the dealer again. Now they were perplexed -- what was happening, and why now? Only after checking the car's history did one sharp tech have a hunch that proved right. He pulled and examined my instrument panel and found that the tech who originally, kindly put in fresh bulbs had put in bulbs for a different model car, and these new bulbs were slightly higher wattage. So they swapped in the correct wattage bulbs, and that solved the problem.
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