Crappy LED, people still buy. Then trying to figure out how to fix it. Trying this and that.
Don’t buy it at the first place! How will anything change if people still buy LEDs that look awful?
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All that many people want is to be able to throw light into a dark corner so they can find stuff and to be able to do it for $10 and pick it up at a big box store.
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I think you are just about right.
It appears to me that you’re confusing LED with the beam profile in specific lights with specific reflectors. That is understandable from new immature people. This is likely a carryover from your other current thread.
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Hey, flashaholics have around 20 years of time now and a lot of technical development has happened during that time. I’d say at this point it’s a mature hobby. 
Over the last several years we’ve seen some wonderful adoption of GOOD emitters, a wide range of color temperatures to choose, plus a push toward higher CRI emitters. And a lot of those models/choices are even available on mass-market Amazon and Ebay now, too.
Still tons of crappy emitters out there of course. Some are just cheap and will remain cheap (in quality, if not price). Some manufacturers still just don’t care enough about “good light” and have resisted our input whether we buy their lights or not (they have their niche markets like firearms or “tactical” and such). Some others embraced it and so we have lots to choose from now in our “budget” brands.
On fixing…or modding…sometimes it’s just for fun - a hobby. Sometimes you can get a host shape that you like and improve the crappy emitter by using a good one, or the driver/firmware, and end up with something you like much better (true for cheap or very expensive lights). But lower quality electronics/circuit designs and also driving them harder for more light (more heat) necessitates some troubleshooting and repairing, too. Many of the more dependable lights still don’t give us nice firmware or nice emitters, so that puts us in a middle ground of…swapping and modding and fixing.
Us enthusiasts are still a pretty small slice of the market for most big brands, so they can afford to not listen to us and “improve” their lights…they still stay in business without us. If they ever change, it’ll be nice, but yes, if they sell enough as-is then they don’t see the need to change.
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Ok. Thank you for your reply
That’s a very good explanation. Thank you!
There once was a time when you couldn’t order well-made lights with good firmware and the LED you prefer straight from Simon or Convoy. When you had to pick a lights based on the things you couldn’t change, and change the rest, to get what you actually wanted.
The community - and to a great degree, this community, has changed that.
Also, modifying lights is a hobby. It’s electronics work and other work as well - for some, machining etc.
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I like modding and I cannot lie
Make em hot til something fries
Tweak the wires and change the beam
Mo powah and they’re mighty mean
I can’t even begin to tell y’all how many lights I’ve bought sheerly on design alone. Didn’t care what emitter or UI they had, many many times I never even put a cell in em and turned em on. Bought em to mod and modded em straight out of the box.
Sometimes I still do that. But I have to admit, a LOT of lights out there today offer so many options it’s easier than ever to get one that just doesn’t need modding. I call that success.
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When I get a little bored, I’ll take a cheapo “crappy” flashlight that I bought years ago and mod it into something pretty darn good.
Here’s one that I made in the past. Top is the AA, 1 mode, low CRI, and bluish tinted LED. Bottom is the modified 14500, 12 mode, high CRI, rosy tinted dedomed 519A LED.
What’s cool to me is that you cannot buy this version of the flashlight anywhere. And it didn’t cost that much since I reused parts from other flashlights that I modified.
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How can you say this is an immature hobby when you can buy an all electric 637hp, $200,000 sports car that’ll go 0-60 in 3 seconds and top out at 155mph, using only Samsung made lithium ion batteries, AND, for only an extra $59.50+tax, you can option on a 27 lumen 2xAAA LED flashlight??
The future is now!
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What makes me really wonder is the popularity of lights with crappy drivers. Hard to fix.
Especially hard to replace a driver that isn’t 1s input voltage or has built-in charging. Basically only the most basic, round-flat 1s drivers.