did you just say the tail caps gonna fail in an emergency ...you gotta be kidding .. so these people who aren't gonna use a light ever anyway will suddenly experiance a tailcap failure ?
what are the odds of that ?? where's that quote about seagulls and the sahara :P
It's happened to me before on a Rom G2. But the thing is it's not all that much more reliable on more expensive lights which are often small batch and not mass manufacturing QC. Some mags can be more reliable because they're screw on, so maybe get a ITP a2/a3 if you need least amount of moving parts.
The only dynamo light I've used was one from Harbor Freight, and it lasted only a couple months before the internal battery died, and it would only put out light while cranking it very quickly. Looked like http://www.dealextreme.com/p/super-mini-2-led-hank-crank-battery-free-dynamo-flashlight-keychain-12932
If they're into green, there's always solar. http://www.dealextreme.com/p/2-in-1-hybrid-solar-power-hand-cranked-dynamo-survival-flashlight-with-fm-radio-and-phone-charger-13761 is both solar and hand-crank...
A friend had the male masturbation lights (the ones where you shake them up and down really quickly), but they died very quickly, and unlike the hand crank one, were completely useless once they died.
I had one of the masterbaters once, and not really a cheap one. It didn't work well but I can't see how it could fail. They don't even have wear parts inside, the cap should be good forever.
After I got the good led lights, I just used this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xbsSeVr5NSI, but my muscles still don't look like the ones in the commercial. Fooled by the ad once again.