440 lights crap??

The lights really are quite good, but it's likely that the reflective coatings have tarnished/fallen off. Sadly there's no way to polish them, the coating just falls off. Order some more reflective bits from a Volvo parts supplier (you may have to order the complete unit) then just swap 'em over. Bigger bulbs can improve them, but there isn't much need. Also, adding the front spot lights improves things still further.

clean the corrosion off the 15 year old connectors at the bulbs will help a great deal,

firstly measure the voltage at the headlights with them on.. then at the battery, i bet there's more than a 1 volt differacne, maybe even 3 or 4 volts in a bad case.

fitting relays at the bulbs can help a lot more than fitting higher powered bulbs,

Most headlights are ok on main beam - it's the dip that is the problem. And it's not usually legal to have spots which work on dip.

Just to clarify, are the dip beams the same as what are referred to in north america as the low beams, and the main beam is what we call the high beams? Or are there further differences?

As someone else said, check the connectors and the wiring, you'd be amazed how much brighter the lights are with heavy wires and relays.

Yeah I use the low beam 99% of the time with just brief bursts of the high beam, it's rare to drive anywhere with no oncoming cars for any more than a few seconds at a time unless it's 3am on a back road.

Philips Vision Plus bulbs. Get them cheap at a Ford dealer's parts desks. Bulbs get dimmer with age, and the Philips ones are brighter than standard new bulbs, so you should notice a decent difference. Expect to pay £15 to £20 for a pair.

thankyou all, will peep into my light situation this weekend.

And halogen bulbs especialy get dimmer when they are run on a lower voltage than they are rated for, so check the voltage at the headlights before spending any money, halogen bulbs need to run at their set temperature to work properly, in order to deposit some of the gasses and things back onto the fillament and not onto the bulb's glass (check google for the specific terms), and the only way for them to run at the proper temperature is to run them at the intended voltage.. which is 13.8 to 14.4 volts ,

you should see that voltage at the battery terminals with the engine running, but i'll bet you get nearer 11 to 12 volts at the headlights bulbs with them on and the engine still running, that's voltage drop caused by the connectors oxidising over the years.. all copper does that, and guess what the wires and connectors are made of... yup..copper, and oxidised copper is a poor conductor, so your wasting voltage in the wires and connectors that should be making the lights brighter, but instead are just heating the wires up.

Half the time just unplugging and re-plugging the connectors can cleam them enough to give an improvement in the bulbs brightness, it costs nothing to try that,

yes the xeon bulbs are brighter than standard halogens, but imagine how much brighter they'd be if you sorted the poor wiring out to the headlights before fitting them.