For the intended use you mentioned, I think these are the top two considerations. Something that can take lithium batteries might be preferable, whether AA, AAA, or CR123 since it sounds like this will be stored permanently with your 72 hour kit. With lithiums, you can leave the headlamp loaded with batteries, ready to go, and not really need worry about battery leakage from long storage.

While you could use it for other uses and then put it back in your 72 hour kit, chances are, when you need to grab your 72 hour kit, you'll remember that you lent your headlamp to your buddy a few weeks earlier to work on that plumbing issue he had and you'll be left without a light (unless you buy TWO, that is, or three...or four...)

The wilderness is very dark, so a super bright light is probably not necessary for navigating out in the bush on foot, setting up camp, etc. With dark adapted eyes, you need very little light to see by. Signaling? During the day? At night, against a dark wilderness backdrop, I would think any reasonably bright light would be effective.

Besides the other brands already mentioned, the popular backpacking/outdoors brands like Petzl and Black Diamond have worked well for me and I haven't broken one yet.

I just bought a Nitecore HC50 headlamp that I like a lot but haven't done more than play with it yet. It has a metal body for absorbing heat when it cranked up high and it feels like a beefy piece of equipment without being too heavy. Excellent beam pattern for my uses. Even so, it's a bit heavy for something I might need to carry a long ways through the bush, though, so I wouldn't necessarily recommend it for you.