Flashlight snobbery?

I've recently come to appreciate the advances in flashlights recently so I decided to try and find a balance between cost, light output and weight.  Rather than give a lengthy and wordy review that would still leave you confused, I decided the best way to show a review of flashlights is to show the results.  My goal was to find a lightweight flashlight that puts out a LOT of light and takes readily available batteries (AA or AAA).

The flashlights I compared for my casual test are shown below (from left to right and also heaviest to lightest):

Flashlight	Batteries	Weight	Cost
Brinyte 750 Lumen CREE flashlight	3 x AA	10.677 oz	$55 on eBay
Coleman Max 144 Lumen Flashlight	3 x AAA	5.108 oz	$20 at Wal-Mart
SAIK CREE 300 Lumen flashlight	2 x AA	4.720 oz	$12 on eBay
The traditional Brinkman mini-maglite	2 x AA	3.781 oz	$10 at Wal-Mart
Cheap 9 LED flashlight	3 x AAA	2.441 oz	$2 anywhere

So how did they perform?  All the pictures below were taken from about 40~50 ft back.  I had the camera mounted on a tripod and fixed on a 10 second timer.  I pushed the button to shoot and then tried to focus my light on the target.  Here is what I saw:


The cheapo 9 LED light

The Brinkman mini-maglite

The 144 lumen Coleman Max

The 300 Lumen SAIK CREE flashlight (I suspect the lumen rating is exaggerated compared to the Coleman flashlight)

The 750 lumen Brinyte dive light

So I really like the light output of the Brinyte and I like the added bonus it is submersible to 75 meters- not something I was looking for.  However, I don't like the fact that turning on the Brinyte is as easy as twisting the top.  That works great for diving (the intended use of this light) but I can see where it would get turned on  by accident when placed in a pack.  When you also consider the cost, you can probably get the most bang for your buck from the SAIK light- especially if you don't need to produce daylight on demand.

p.s. - The specs on the Coleman Max per Coleman for flashlight model 2000006530 144 lumens using a Cree XP-E bulb.