Believe it or not, the best ballasts are the magnetic ones, not the digi's.
Go to any hydro shop and ask which gets returned more, hands down it's digital ballasts.
Also, ALL brands of digital ballasts have bulb compatibility issues, theirs not one digital brand that has never had bulb issues or caused bulb issues. Not saying every didgital ballast has that problem, but that bulb issues are the common thread between all digi's. Hope I didnt confuse you
(why do you think you're suddenly seeing bulbs that are supposedly "made for digital ballasts"?)
Lumateks were the absolute worst offenders for awhile, but I believe the newer generation Lumateks are much better.
Galaxy's seemed to have the least issues, I don't really see many complaints about them.
All that info can be found by doing a little google research.
The best, cheapest, easiest to rebuild, longest lasting and easily obtainable ballasts are magnetic ballasts. Stick with any name brand (I use SunLeaves and SunSystem), they have the best warranty's and use a universal cord set.
As for best reflector, Pico did and amazing comparison thread on icmag and the SunSystem-2 hood came out on top.
I use them myself and will never give them up.
I ran cooltubes for awhile and while their straight thru design makes them a cinch to cool, the light footprint was nothing compared to my SS-2's.
Sorry for the long winded reply.
Everything I typed above comes from research and trial/error. Your results and/or opinions may vary