I was taught that we see more "efficiently" at the yellow point of the spectrum. Fairly close to that of sunlight!
A choke is just a magnetic coil, the reason dimmers "don't like magnetics" is that with A.C. a magnetic coil will alter the phase angle and cause more power to be used with less effect. Our teacher (yes I still remember him) demonstrated a "dimmer" that used that effect. He called it Wattless power! He also showed us how to dim any normal 240v flourescent fitting!