I was not interested in what the people at CPF would think about Surefire brand flashlights. I believe I got a more realistic estimation of Surefire brand from this forum.
I did not realize you could get the E2l AA for under a $100.00 during sales. Thanks for the info. Just might pick one up at that price someday.
I knew you could find just about anything on Ebay. However that did not translate into new and used Surefire flashlights on ebay. Sometimes, I am rather dense. 
nobody here is really concerned about how some on CPF worship Surefire like a god & as the only flashlight company to buy a flashlight from.
I do not consider Surefire to be any more non-budget as Foursevens, Sunwayman, Maglite, Fenix, Nitecore, etc is really, though i do see Surefire as over-priced by far from what you get regardless of how good their warranty or customer service is.
My brother’s surefire failed in the first year he owned it. (failed switch) They break too like any manufactured product.
Since i am not using it for anything mission critical i look at it as a value proposition
Lets say its costs 10x more. What do i get for that money?
I would get better metal, better anodization, heavier duty switch, better warranty support and better circuitry. I get worse output and lighter wallet.
Lets assume they fixed the worse output problem.
I can buy 10 flashlights with decent metal, acceptable anodization, fully functioning switch, no warranty support (anything i do get is a bonus) and linear circuitry. In those 10 lights i can buy a thrower, flooder, AA, 18650, and so on. Now those lights may cost a bit more so lets say i can only buy 6 lights. Also having more then one light is cheap insurance against light failure, if a surefire has 0.1% chance of failure and cheaper light has 0.25% chance of failure i am more then twice as safe with 6 lights vs 1 (numbers guesstimated).
One surefire vs 6 cheaper (and upgradeable) lights, choose your poison.
The warranty is useless anyways when we mod 95 % of our lights.
I agree, thats why i said i consider chinese lights to have no warranty, and by modding we do better then a warranty anyways, why replace an XM-L with another when i can use XP-L on noctigon.
You’re way more than twice as safe in this case with even just 2 lights. The probability of 2 lights both failing is .025 * .025 = 0.000625. That’s even not factoring in losing a light or dropping and losing the tail cap when making a battery swap.
I’m absolutely not in the mood to pay an extremely inflated - so called - “premium” price, just to fill the pockets of some elitist shareholders - really!
To use a very popular comparison, it is the same with cars: I could troublefree afford to buy a Mercedes Benz as my main car, but i wouldn’t do that, because i can’t see any benefit in doing so, against driving - for example - a Volkswagen (I am German, BTW). The only benefit i could imagine, is some kind of bragging against others, which is not my preferred style. I prefer good bang for my buck, not for others. I make the same decisions with all my purchases and i’m doing fine this way and won’t change it. Thanks!
Honestly, I’d rather have a Sunwayman. If I were rich to the point that money didn’t matter, I would probably buy some of the smaller boutique made-in-USA flashlights like HDS or Prometheus. And if I were a LEO, I would still probably carry a Chinese flashlight because I’m always going to have a backup. Maybe the Surefire is slightly less apt to fail, but anything can fail, so you’re going to be carrying a backup either way, right? I’m not going to pay a 50% premium for a 5% increase in quality. That doesn’t fit my definition of value, which is the relationship between price and quality.
Did you also know that there is a store in china that is called U.S.A? When i found that out, it made me question the products i get from DX why it said “Made in U.S.A.”
And there is a city in Japan called Usa (according to Wikipedia, the city was founded on April 1, 1967).
And I remember some cheap Japanese goods that were marked as made in usa (back in the days when some japanese goods were not
much better than nowadays some chinese goods are). 
Best Regards,
George
As you seem to remember, in the 1950s/early 1960s, post war Japan made “junk”. Eventually they became known for extremely high quality goods.
I look at flashlights like I do HDMI cables. Cheap brand works just as good as a Monster cable. But some people worship Monster cables and think they are blessed with magical fairy dust. Those digital bits look and sound better to them when using those cables. Plus the pretty colors make them work better.
Flashlights can be trendy status symbols to some people just like Apple fanatics with their iDevices. Don’t want to be seen carrying a budget light when you are ordering a $5 cup of coffee at the Starbucks.
Some Chinese companies put “made in the USA” on behalf of unscrupulous American businesses who then charge a premium for their goods. But yeah, I assume that no Chinese company would import USA made products and sell them back to us at a loss, so anything from there is made there. For example, I have a box of RJ45 cable ends that came from DX, say “Made in the USA” on the box and look identical down to the fine print on the box, which tells me that reputable company switched at some point, but, uhm, forgot to change the labels. I’m sure it’s an innocent oversight that their Chinese made products are mislabeled.
But short of something unscrupulous, I mainly look at quality and price, and don’t care where something is made. It’s either a good value or it isn’t. And for flashlights, the biggest innovators are the Chinese companies.
I doubt if they are worth the premium price. As for reliability send your inexpensive light to someone like RMM or Vinh and have them go through it and replace the driver with a better one along with the wiring and install better LED heat sinks and your choice of LED tints. In some cases an upgraded switch can also be fitted. Based on the number of Surefire switches I read about failing you may well end up with a more reliable light than a Surefire. If you are handy you can do the same modifications yourself. Still probably less expensive than the Surefire.
I would not go that far, Cree is not chinese
I wasn’t aware that Cree was an innovator in flashlights.
Apparently they are, they form the heart of all our many flashlights, and when a new generation comes out we flock to buy them for lumen testing and overdriving.
So the light bulb is the flashlight. Got it.