very good post old.
i think some people think the higher the charge rate the better, yes it will be faster but all in all the battery will sag and it will hold less mAh in the end, not to mention it will raise the internal resistance of the battery and shorten its life.
the issue i think is not the hobby charger holding the charge rate longer or stressing out the battery, its people over charging the batteries take an 18650 since the charger will cut out at 4.2v or what you have set it to if you push to much current into the batteries they will rise in voltage hit the 4.2v cut off early and cut off they will not have time to absorb all the mAh and then once the cell is rested and the voltage is check it will be lower then 4.2volt and the battery will not give its full run time once used cause it didn't get to take its full mAh and its full voltage and I'm hopping we all understand the more mAh the longer the torch will run before needing a recharge, this also works for all rechargeable batteries.
there is other factors in this the charge mode used on the charger for example a fast charge will only charge to 80 to 90% the batteries will also make a difference the cheaper the battery will impact discharge and charge rates, a cheap hobby charger will also make a difference and because hobby charger,s let us humans do the thinking and we are an impatient breed we tent to over charge then ask why the rested voltage is different
I'm into remote control (RC) as a hobby have been for 20 years or so i have always had hobby chargers over the years and i run a middle of the road hobby chargers for my RC and my 18650,s i find it is more precise then the cheaper stuff but there need,s to be some understanding and knowledge, i could not go back to plug and play chargers as i would need so many.
while I'm new to 18650 batteries I'm not new to li-xx batteries i use slow charge,s and i always balance charge my 18650,s its slower, the charge rate ramps down giving the batteries time to normalize and this is where they will take a bulk of the mAh back.
i charge my 18650,s at a max charge rate of 0.5 amps (500 mAh) and i only use cheap batteries the trustfire flames, this is about the Maxim i believe these batteries can be pushed over a slow balance charge to take the Maxim mAH , this works out at around 0.4C for the charge rate, i believe 0.2C is better but then i pick the higher charge rate (C) to save time.
with my hobby li-po batteries there normally is a 1C charge rate so 1 x capacity of the battery divided by 1000, so if you have a 2200 mAh battery its 2.2 amps most li-po,s can be charged at 2C + so 2 x capacity, i mention this so people might understand the above when i say 0.4 and 0.2C.
over the years Ive found most cheaper chargers will do the job and some do it well, i would not recommend people who are not into RC to spend big $$$ on chargers and power supply,s as there is no need a couple of cheaper chargers like the WF-139 or the WF-188 would be fine if they don't over charge if they under charge no problem but most batteries are protected.
but also over the years i have noticed a lot of the cheaper chargers not to be 100% accurate or calibrated to there full potential and have noticed differences of .01 to 0.4 volt + some under charge some over charge and there is a difference between each charger i guess this comes down to quality control and some times you get what you pay for but we all want to save money.
i cant say a WF-139 is better then a $200 hobby charger that's full programmable, with calibration features that's accurate with in 10 mv (0.01v) or as accurate as your fluke DMM,s as i personally don't think it is, but like i said i cant recommend torch addicts to spend that money on what i call a half decent charger and power supply set up just for torch batteries, i also cant recommend the cheap imax b6 balance chargers due to there inaccuracy and there poor performance with accuracy and nimh charging.
like you say knowledge is the king, there needs to be some understanding and often to save time charging will shorten the life of your batteries and they will have slower resting voltage, its a give and take to me, the user needs to find the middle ground between Maxim mAh good rested voltage and charge time, one thing i will say that's good about the hobby chargers is understanding as you see whats going on and after a while to will make sense to most people.
with hobby chargers on the display screen you can actually see what your charging and discharging habits are doing to your batteries, you will see voltage sag with high discharge rates and you will see the voltage rise with high charge rates but once the battery has normalized or rested it will show other wise so then you know your over charging.
E.g when charging a 18650 at 1 amp say is you start the charge at 3.2 volt you will see the battery voltage climb up as soon and the charger kicks in but if you stop the charger you will see the battery voltage fall back to where you started, the same goes for discharging your 18650,s (but back to front) if you discharge a 18650 at 2 amps with the batteries resting voltage of 4.18v and you set the charger to shut down when the discharge hits 3v you will notice the charger will shut off when the battery hits 3v under load but once the load is taken off the battery will climb back up the battery has not had the time to take in or out its mAh.
this is why slower charge and discharge rates are better as the batteries will be closer to true rested voltage and mAh or normalized like you say, now like we said knowledge is power, but with the WF-139 you can not see this happening in front of your eye,s on the screen and a lot of people most likely will not research this and if they don't have a back ground in electric,s or RC so they might be surprised if they get one it will genrate questions.
also some hobby chargers are good for knowing how much mAh is going into the battery so you know truly how the battery performs plus features like data logging internal resistance testing comes in handy and can help you pick and chose what batteries to use say for direct drive torch,s and watching a good hobby charger in action will help people understand voltage drop and sag and voltage rise when charging over time.
Ive read on here in the past and even today plus of other forums in the past of these cheap chargers not shutting off and over charging and so on, but in other peoples eye,s they are the bee,s knee,s, i believe my $200 hobby charger and power supply is better then a WF-139 or an imax b6 not because it cost more and makes me better then every one else, its better cause its programmable it has more features i can charge multiple li-po,s at 10 amps for my remote control cars i can charge my xbox 360 controller batteries my camera batteries my torch batteries my radio batteries my 9v nimh,s its more accurate and it will work in the car on 12volt and it works at home i even take it on holidays to charge camera batteries it is used attest every couple of days and has payed for its self already.
i can easily see people with out a RC or electrical knowledge not understanding loaded and unloaded voltage and not understanding rested cell voltage and they would be seeing data they are not used to yet, if any one with a hobby charger is questioning the rested voltage of there batteries then they are over charging the batteries most likely.
instead of charging one battery at 1 amp with a hobby charger your much better off charging 2 to 6 or more at 0.5 amp the batteries will charge better hold more mAh giving them more run time and longer shelf life and because you are charging multiple batteries it works out much quicker then trying to force feed one and there will be less or no rested voltage difference because its being charged at a lower charge rate but your still saving time as your charging mutable batteries.
i like you believe knowledge is power but i don't believe its the hobby chargers fault i believe its user error mostly wrong charging modes cheap batteries and over charging a good hobby charger used correctly with a half decent battery will not stress out a battery or let the battery sag to 4.15v after its rested