I totally agree
Seriously though, I try to make all reviews a tear down - can't really tell what's goin on til you open it up and look, if possible. Always seem to find something. Just wish I know more about the electronics, but I'll try taking high qual pics of all the electronics. Guess if a light is so tightly glued, it can always be cut open, and if I knew a light was free and can be destroyed, then there would be no hesitation.
Sometimes I do feel guilty though nit-picking at details on a donated light. One light I was given to review I felt so bad about ripping it, so below rated specs, that I never did end up posting the review on it. I feel though that was a mistake and won't repeat it - should have posted it, many do, and sort of gloss over the fact the manufacturer heavily over-rated it, but I won't do that anymore (sorry freeme!).
I do feel giving manufacturers benefit of the doubt. I'm ok with spec'd lumens up to ~15% over what I test, there's just too many variables, and the maukka lumens standards had been ~12% under what I've seen spec'd from top name brand manufacturers (ThruNite, NiteCore, etc.) in the past.
I should though do and publish runtime tests, because I totally agree - it's rarely spec'd by the manufacturers. The standards clearly state the 30 sec rule, so after 30 secs, it seems ok if anything happens. Also beamshots, least on a white wall, will tell you quite a bit about the beam, though personally, I'm not too fussy about the patterns - what we have today with LED technology is so much better than the black center hole of lights from the past. But still, I can appreciate the demand and interest of overall beam quality.
There's so many other things of interest:
- parasitic drain, across modes if relevant
- battery size compatibility
- weight and dims
- accurate amp draw (various modes, cells, etc.)
- driver design details
- charging circuitry (amps, compatibility, etc.)
- quality of anodizing - not sure even how to do this, but if you can damage the light, then you could come up with a standard test of maybe sand paper, file, or some other means that can be consistently applied and compared
- the optics - usually not directly rated/reviewed but the resulting output, beam pattern, and throw are all results
Sure there's more.... For any review, always better to keep it short, well organized, and able to use as a reference on specs.