I know tylor has been waiting to see these, but i installed a set of LED bulbs in the g/f's dash cluster today. Been working with a friend of hers who is putting together kits for various cars and we were the test for the protege. The first set we received had terrible light output mainly due to mazda deciding "hey lets try to light this up with 4 bulbs" (in comparison my talon has 9 to light the cluster) So on the second try we got some better quality (and more expensive) bulbs. Light output is great much much better, it also seems like the gauge lighting is more crisp like the actually transparent part lights up but the light doesnt bleed out from there. My only gripe is you can see in the picture where the two small bulbs that sit out at the edges create a bright spot in the gauges.
Edit: Yes the odo says 173k lol still going strong.