You have to think of both carry chargers and home use only chargers and weather the person has a lot of cells or just a couple that keeps cycling them between their flashlights.
The bigger more complex and bigger chargers will be of course good for stationary use at home for people who generally have more than 3 cells.
Maybe those requesting less complex but still high power and only 2 bay charger are those wanting the charger for travel, some would say a single bay charger is enough for travel, sure that can work too.
For example I would not mind and buy a charger that has 2 bays, but is capable of high current per charging bay (say 3A, but still decided by user to be lower if they want for small li-ion cells) but uses a PD style of power input, after all we can get pretty tiny GaN chargers that can output 65W via USB-C so when I carry that with myself anyway, it would be nice to power my li-ion charger also rather that use a dedicated brick to carry extra when you can use that single USB-C power supply for a smartphone, tablet or laptop in the first place.
I understand that you may think that people will choose the cheapest USB-C power supply and use the cheap cables (or at least not the best) and thus limit or cause issues with your charger, which undoubtedly would happen (some would make those choices), and then they will not get then your advertised results from your charger.
But still for someone who may be somewhat savvy with these things would be a nice thing if a feature rich li-ion charger could be done using such power input.
i think a full featured 2-bay charger for lithium cells would be very useful.
How many flashlights need 4 Li cells? i only have 1 choad light and never use it; my favorites only need 1 cell and get used all the time.
Why are all chargers 4-bay?— because back in the old days when only Ni-Cd cells were available almost every device needed 4 cells in order to have enough voltage to do anything.
Now that we are living in the future, 1 lithium cell can replace the voltage of 3 or 4 of the old type cells. But the mentality of the past follows into the cheapskates of the future, trying to make universal chargers for every type with 4 bays—its the “Jack of all, Master of none” approach, sure to disappoint in the long run.
I agree with this most of these opinions. Most smaller charger has it’s place - primary for casual users, and secondary (additional units) for traveling/mobile users. Users living in small and compact spaces or flats would surely appreciate this design, and yet having some good functionality.
I have an S4+ that’s mainly use for charging at home because of bulk. Traveling is always a premium for space and weight — so I carried either my simple Lii-100 or my 2-bay Lii-S2 which required only the older Micro-USB as power supply. High-power charger might need bricks, so it does add up to weight. So a 2-bay analyzing would be a nice upgrade. Maybe take out the IR — it’s not as reliable anyway - just the capacity testing and repair functions.
I’m not sure if it can be done — but why not design it to be modular in terms of bay and functionality. Either internal or external add-ons, if features are desired (such as components). Bays can also be made modular — lego bricks concept — 2/4/8 etc; or small bays/large bays. But I understand that modularity would drive the cost up, because mainly of upgrade slot requirements and adapters.
ETA —
I do have an (older) single-bay Opus BT-C100 analyzing charger. But because it uses a separate power block, it’s seating on it’s box and prefer to bring the USB-powered simplier (and more compact) Liitokalas. Most devices are moving towards Type-C interface — maybe VapCell can harness this advantage.