Unfortunately, in budget light country (china) new lights are not necessarily better than the old ones, it is just random what comes on the market. Every now and then they come up with something that performs really well, and in xml zoomies the last light that performed really well came out ages ago: the Uniquefire UF-T20. And (although not my cup of tea) I read about several people mounting it on their rifle (and because the zooming part is not sliding but turning, it handles recoil well).
T20 is really good with large glass lens and above average build quality. TomE beefed up mine to dedomed xpg2 driven at 4.3A. The throw is 128kcd at 1meter.
Not much happening as of late with budget zoomies, accept if anything, they've gone downhill in quality. I've mod'ed several though, but usually more work involved, and you lose so much in lumens, and still can't compete well with reflector lights for throw. Done a couple of T20's and have a couple of them - nice with a de-domed XP-G2.
The SS ZY-C10-S is still a good one too, though the quality isn't there. Mod'ed out one featured here: onestopthrowshop - ZY-C10-S, and they talk about the extra work involved. Again, a nice light to use a de-domed XP-E2 in, and relatively compact. Basically though, the smaller diameter the lens, the less throw - classic trade-off.
I mod'ed this one: fasttech zb-006, and it did really well for it's size, after modding of course- it's very compact and light.
That MarsFire looks interesting... 5 modes is a PIA, but it does say mode memory, if it works that is.
For modding, well, there's lots of info here on BLF, but I'd change the emitter to XM-L2 or XP-G2 on a copper MCPCB, change out the driver to a Nanjg or QLite, and see how the star is mounted - that may need work, depending on the light. This is for starters - upgrade the LED wiring to heavier gauge, higher quality, copper braid the springs to lessen resistance, etc...
Uf-t20 for sure. Awesome light, uses C8 pills so you can buy a few for dirt cheap from fasttech and mod them and you have different drop ins (screw ins).
I have about 8 of these lights kicking around with anything from de-domed xp-e2’s to XM-l2’s and I’m about to find out how an mt-g2 at 4.4a does in it.