plastic meltdown with stronger bulbs?

[tan man]

of the various remedies for low lighting of dash, one post mentioned bypassing the dimmer and remarked how super bright his dash became. I didn't see any follow up post so dont' know if this solution made his clear plastic brown.
another post mentioned using higher wattage bulbs but the poster noticed a distinct elevation in heat and swapped back the old bulbs. so my question is if you install higher wattage bulbs, can't you turn down the dimmer just a bit and have more light yet not enough to cause a meltdown?
by the way, my car is a 1985 380sl.
jack