Tony,
Many thanks. Good to hear that someone with the single-condenser box has never noticed an issue!
The new box looks almost exactly the same as the old box, except it has two condensers in it instead of the one that the old boxes had, ostensibly in order to make the whole field more even. Like I said, I can't believe that Leitz would ever release a (film-based) product that was truly sub-par. At the same time, I've seen figures comparing the illumination evenness of the two, and the results suggested the difference was as much as ~25%, though at that point it might be like saying the difference between 1mm and 2mm is 100%, but if its on a 100m beam, its not really of any consequence.
Not too worried about brightness, as I've read enough times that they're bright as hell no matter what.
If you ever wanted to upgrade to the new bulbs when your stash runs out, Leica US can get you one from Germany for about $100, which is what I'm going to order tomorrow. Just wanted to see if I should get the new mixing box as well.
-Patrick