Using a 40 watt or 60 watt light bulb will still allow sufficient current to flow. However, if the load is too small, like a small wattage night light, then there will be too little current to keep the dimmer unit alive. There is another greater benefit to that 1.1 milli-second gap. Even so, they will also always leave the first 1.1 milli-seconds blank so that they can receive clear signals. What really gets confusing is when an X-10 dimmer unit is used on inductive loads.
Inductive loads are typically motors and transformers.
Inductive loads are designed to use clean, smooth sine waves. They don't like it when their source of power is all chopped up. Now, lets talk about motors. A standard AC motor relies on the flux lines created around the stator at 60Hz to cause a mechanical rotation in the rotor. These electronic speed control drive units will control the speed of the motor by actually changing the frequency of the power to the motor.