Mine would be a fully sorted C3 - the new aluminium ones come close enough, with a driver that can ramp from 2mA to 1500mA to the LED - like the Solarforce Skyline 1 but starting on low.
Also a reflector designed for the R5 and enough mass in the head to heatsink an R5 at full power. Make the head out of copper, chroming it if necessary for hardness.
I want a good beam and colour, a little wider than the Romisen RC-G2 whose beam is too narrow, but with throw numbers better than the Hugsby P31/32. This should be perfectly feasible due to the sheer output of an R5.
Oh yes, and I want it to run from a single NiMH - which means an AA NiMH that doesn't sag like crazy at 6A - Eneloops are good for up to 8A.
ArcMania would make one for me with HA3 and bells and whistles but it would probably cost 20x as much. It is perfectly feasible, just not at the price I want to pay....
I counted the threads - this has the same threading as the new body though it has the same exterior finish as the old ones (I have 6 of the old ones - on a good day 4 of them will light up without fiddling). The Manafont one has 2 or 3 more turns on the tailcap end. the tailcap end on the old ones was the biggest problem. Which makes me want it more.
to have a 17mm driver board. It would be easy to swap it with a http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.6190. These can be customised to three modes with jumpers and with an addidional 7135 chip it think might work just fine.
I always had bad contacts at the head of the light... this was on 3xC3 the case. What could be a sign of longer threads, is the little gap between battery tube and head. I have sworn to myself to never buy UFs any more, where I don't have reviews to check for build quality on the main body, being the guinea pig on UFs is a pain. And even if there are good reviews, you might get something totally different with the next batch... how many different UF C3 are there? ... 10, 20... ?
I think the logos on UF depend on which day of week we have... Mondays it's TLTRAFIRE... because the logomaker partied to much on the weekend. You don't need someone else to worsen the quality, UF can do this themselves. Think of it as UltraLottery. You might get the best flashlight there is, or a doorstop.
Don't know of one - there is a referral programme but i have no idea how it works. If I did, I'd give you my link to use. But you would probably rather that you got the discount instead of me.....