I mean the DRL design is one of the best designs I've ever seen for the LEDs and are much brighter in the day than the HID's DRLs. Plus all the small details inside the unit make it truly stand out.
As for headlight brightness I have no idea but LEDs just looks better than HIDs imo. These LEDs also swivel and have LED cornering lamps built in. Not to mention the LED tail lights, improved front bumper design, interior upgrades, improved rear bumper, and the hidden radar sensor.
If you can afford the Mk7.5s I wouldn't even look at a Mk7, it's the small details that have made it a big improvement.
I will give you that the Mk7.5 tails are better (in the US.) I actually prefer the rear bumper and diffuser design of the Mk7 though, but have come to slightly prefer the front of the Mk7.5. Overall the Mk7 was a cleaner, more minimalist design and the 7.5 butched it up a little bit. I like both, wouldn't really choose one over the other, except I do greatly prefer the larger screen in the 7.5 and the lack of the faux carbon trim on the inside. But you are giving up a lot of little features like the lit 12v plug, the under seat storage, the a/c glovebox, the battery cover and a few other minor things that got decontented on the 7.5.
Mk7 HID's had the same cornering and swiveling features though, there's really little to no performance difference in the two, although I have found more OBDEleven features for the LED's, so maybe I'll grow to like them more than I initially have.
Kind of funny, because I used to run (and hate) HID lights for my bike, and only run LED now. They're massively better, less flutter, better beam pattern and generally better light color too. I just haven't found car LED headlights to be noticeably better than HID, but that's also probably mostly the NHTSA's fault, I suspect that ROW cars have the much better lights that dim and change their sweep for oncoming traffic, not just the nearly useless auto highbeam that we get.
I bought mine from a dealer who also installed APR tunes so I didn't even leave the dealership before buying a tune for both the engine and transmission.