Sorry to hear about the issues with the Tradfri lights. I recently tried finding cheaper alternatives to the Hue bulbs as well. They're unreasonably high priced. I had similar problems to what you're seeing with the Tradfri bulbs with some rebranded eWeLight bulbs off Amazon. They're terrible overall and only work correctly about 30% of the time (but were only $25 for 2 full color/color temperature bulbs). Still probably not worth it. I unwisely tossed the packaging too, so I can't return them. Chalk the lost funds up to lessons learned I guess.
I also tried some Osram Lightify color temperature bulbs, some "RealityLight" bulbs, and some "innr" brand bulbs. Of those, only the innr bulbs would even pair with the Hue bridge. The innr bulbs were about $50 on Amazon for 2 full color/color temperature bulbs, but work flawlessly with the Hue bridge (at least the 4 I bought did). The others had to be returned as they wouldn't even pair with the bridge (they probably weren't ZigBee 3.0 compatible, in retrospect, which is required for the Hue bridge).