Well my thoughts on this is that the FYA light should be a game changer. By that I mean mainly a light that makes those that follow have to up their bar. For instance, the Q8. I think this light is a game changer primarily because it has taken its complex UI not only acceptable to the cognoscenti but also simultaneously accessible to your typical everyday average BLFer at a very affordable price.
Now the Q8 allows average schmoes like me to play in their en-light-ened intellectual playground and sorta understand their design and logic supporting it. I know the amount of work that went into developing a Q8 must had been tremendous.
However I will say that it is possible that even a simple AA light could win it too if its performance was remarkable in relation to other AA’s out there.
Do for example AA lights like that exist?
I suppose they may as I just recently discovered that there are now “white laser” lights developed that could make our ubiquitous LEDs essentially obsolete performance-wise. How about throw measured in kilometers/miles instead of yards? Butt their price perhaps rears its ugly behind in BLF’s face a little too much?
There also could be even single AA LED lights existing right now that no one on BLF has ever reviewed that are commensurately remarkable in their own right. We just don’t really about them because no one has bought and reviewed them here.
Now I think price is a most important consideration. We must not forget that we are afterall “renowned” as The BUDGET Light forum. So yeah, price to performance and to all other ratios, price must be paramount. No doubt a $5,000 light would likely win the FYA.
But that’s not what this place is about now is it?
Maybe considering nothing more than $100 retail is one parameter.
Right now with its price-to-performance ratio the Q8 probably deserves to win the 2018 FYA, butt like I said there’s still 8 months to go.
One other thing, IMO a panel of objective experts could nominate the FYA and then we poll butt then you run into the probable fact that the panel of EXPERTS themselves ARE THE GUYS who had a hand in developing a FYA contender to begin with. :person_facepalming:
Sooooooo, perhaps a simple wide open BLF community poll is the simplest most non-biased way to ahem, shine here.
Then everybody can argue afterwards about how the pollers didn’t know what the heck they were talking about. :laughing: Which makes me think too that we probably should consider different categories of flashlights. Single emitter/single battery, multi-emitter/multi battery, etc. Or just say screw it and FYA the best dam flashlight price to performance and call it a day.
Stay thirsty my friends. 
Btw I like the idea of every 6 months/a semi-annual winner and then the grand FYA winner announced in January. And an extended BLFer price of course if it’s a special edition.
