I voted 5000K! If I had only 1 flashlight with 1 tint, I would chose 5000K as it is more versatile for me for indoor and outdoor use.
Normally I carry a Convoy triple with XP-G2 5000K and a Sofirn SF14 moded with XPL-HI 4500-5000K.
Indoor, use mostly Sofirn SF10 with Luxeon V 4000K, though.
Sounds like an easier question than it really is .
I like lots of different temp.lights but even within a bin there can be good and bad tints ….or maybe desirable and less desirable .
Voted 4500k simply because its bang in the middle of my fav temps. 5k for day and sometimes evening, 4k evening into night time is good for me. Can use anything in between……….
Recently I have become more aware of the fact that people’s perception of light and colour varies quite a bit. Probably changes with age as well. Personally I am happiest with 4500 to 5500 so voted 5000. I find 4000 makes colours look muddy or orange, unnaturally so to my eye, and this to me is far more disappointing than a 6500 light that makes colours look faded or washed out. BLF A6 neutral or Q8 is just about perfect to me, makes colours look more natural to me than any higher CRI light of different cct that I have, still don’t have a neutral high CRI to compare.
I tend to like between 4000K and 5000K, but I’ve liked lights outside that. I’d pick 5000K generally, but my most-used light is 4500K because that’s the 144A I could get at the time.
I have some, check my signature and go to the store. It’s not too efficient and cheap since they are premium high CRI version.
There are some alternatives out there too. Try googling them.
Now we need a multi-emitter CCT-blending flashlight using both of these and maybe a neutral or two also to balance the middle, for a “nearly full” CCT spectrum totally in HI CRI.