I suppose electromigration could be minimized by swapping the fluorescent tubes end-for-end at some defined interval. Chimney sweeps would be retrained as tube swappers. Clean and swap your tubes, ma'am?
Until Westinghouse worked out the totalizing power meter there was no way to determine how much energy a customer had used. Edison apparently had some sort of electrochemical cell that used electroplating and weighing of electrodes to determine consumption.
It was pretty obvious at the time that AC was much better than DC for distribution. That Edison resorted to politics rather than technology shows his position. If he had won, it wouldn't have been for long.
Can anyone think of any advantage in having DC delivered right to the user by the PoCo? I suspect that Telco exchanges still distribute 48V DC power internally to simplify UPS systems. BTW, I once ran across a number of lead-acid cells in a scrapyard which I assume were from the local Telco. Each was at least a foor or two on a side. I think they were rated at 800 amp-hours. I recall thinking whether I could justify getting a few of these for something someday.
Cheers,