I have a feeling were confusing TIR with Aspherics
TIR is usually in the 90-96% efficiency range (similar to reflectors), while aspherics are in the 30-70% range of efficiency.
a TIR = total internal reflection lens is one that looks like a cone shaped solid plastic with a flat front, imagine if there was to be a piece of plastic that filled the volume within a reflector. The light travels within this plastic, and reflects off the plastic/air interface as if it was a reflector. These lenses usually sit over the emitter and are able to capture most (95%+) of the light from the emitter. They usually produce a well defined wide spot of light. Imagine a narrow spill light but with constant mid level brightness across the whole area.
An aspheric lens is one like those in magnifying glasses, a convex lens which only converges the light that goes Through it. It has high losses because it needs to be placed away from the emitter to focus, and is not in close association with the emitter. A large amount of light that is emitted from the LED sideways does not go to the lens (about half in a compact aspheric torch), and is therefore lost as energy heating up the torch instead. However aspheric lenses can be focused to make a very tight spot (image of the die) with no spill light. Flood to throw torches use aspheric optics. The flood option comes from bringing the lens out of focus.
Reflectors are common, and give a good mixture of throw (central hotspot) and flood for general mixed use with high efficiency 95%
TIRs make great general purpose flood lights and work lights for close range work requiring very smooth beam patterns, also high efficiency 95%
Aspherics are Great throw lenses, however can be very inefficient (50%). They can be improved by having very big lenses, or complicated optical systems that increase the capture of light, however there are diminishing returns, and efficiency is difficult to obtain economically.