Good points Nautic, I also am personally annoyed by the same attitudes and overly-controlling policies that you mention. It's a good example of how we should NOT be, so let's try to learn from their mistakes and not repeat them.
I imagine a lot of North American manufacturing workers are still smarting from the loss of North American manufacturing jobs to Asia. As a result, they hate Asian products and their products with a vengeance. But, one really to has to face the reality: the global economy is here to stay in this present system. There have been a lot of junky products out of North America, and there have been a lot of junky products out of China. But these days, a lot of the most wildly popular products by respected companies are made in Asia, the iPhone being the most prominent example. And, whether they like it or not, most of the popular flashlight brands are made in China. See the following pages for Fenix, NiteCore, Solarforce, and Quark, and search for the word "China" within the page. Yet, the most hardened flashlight critic has to admit that those brands are, well, "shining" examples of exquisite engineering and manufacturing. In the same way, many of the budget flashlights that are consistently scorned on other forums actually come very close to the those name brands in quality, for a much better price. The real difference is that the budget lights don't try to hide the fact that they're made in China. And the price. So, to each his own, but I think that the budget lights fill an important niche in the market.
As far as the policies on other forums, I imagine that much of that nonsense is actually owing to the fools who have posted spam and caused so many problems on those forums, and they have adapted drastic policies against them. But there's no excuse for belittling and heavy-handedly modding legitimate members who just want to discuss flashlights. I personally am most annoyed by the feeling that they will try to label me as a promoter of some product if I refer to it too directly. Therefore when I post on those forums I have to say, "Hi, I wanted to get your opinion on the SomethingFire X-123, sold at a certain site that starts with the letter D". Here that won't happen. Please post direct links to anything relevant to flashlights, as long as it doesn't contain nasty images or illegal material, it's game here on BLF. I personally don't live in the USA at the moment, so I also find it offensive to suggest that anyone outside of the USA must be a thief or a crook. What a shame. And on a practical note, shipping is so expensive to where I live that I can't really buy from an American seller even I want to. I don't know how China does it, but they have shipped me many nice flashlights to a backwoods town in South America for the princely shipping cost of $0.00. That's the deal breaker for me.
So post away, thanks to everyone so far for the polite, respectful attitude and your insightful comments about budget flashlights. If there's any legitimate way to spread the word about BudgetLightForum then go for it. And if you have any comments to improve the site, please let me know!