My 'best' flashlight is a Streamlight 4AA. I am very impressed with what it can do in terms of throw and spill, but what I find universally true with the higher end LED lights is that you pay for performance with battery life.

I get, at best, 4 hours of max light before it kicks itself down to 'normal' output which is fine for most things, but a far cry from it's initial output.

That is one of the reasons I chose the 4AA, it takes 4 AA batteries and rechargables are easy to come by. I have looked at the other lights with less common batteries and those batteries cost an arm and a leg. CR123 batteries where I am at cost (much) more for disposables than Alkaline rechargeables.