When shopping for flashlights I consider what I am doing. IF I'm going to use the light for searching, reading distant addresses in the rain or may need to cut through smoke or fog I need power.

For emergency repairs, setting up camp at the end of a day or navigating out of a building I don't need anywhere near the power. All the fine work will be no farther away than arms length and at longer range I just need to avoid stepping into a hole or stumbling into obstacles.

Too strong a light can cause glare and it will needlessly consume more energy than necessary.

Companies sell higher power lights because it is a concept that is easy to sell. Americans are all about bigger and more powerful. A friend drives a car with something like 400 HP. He doesn't get there any faster than I do with my four-banger and he feels the pain when he fills up. I reminded him the old Willis Jeep, possibly the most well known vehicle in history, had only 50 to 60 HP.

With flashlights you pay for power with battery life. LEDs are many times more efficient than the old incandescent bulbs but they are not immune to the laws of physics.With LEDs you get more light for the power used but the batteries always have limited capacity. Lithium cells get you more power, endurance, in the same unit volume but they are not limitless.

I think LED lights are the way to go for everything but where I need a small searchlight. I keep a couple of large flashlights with xenon bulbs that really reach out handy for reading house numbers from the street on rainy nights.

For repair work a Mini-Mag with a Night-Ize LED conversion is good. A lot less light but the work is close. In some ways I like these more than the more refined and brighter Mini-Maglight LED. It is about half the cost, $9 for the Mini-Mag and $5 for the conversion kit versus $24 for the purpose built Mag unit, and the batteries seem to last longer.