First I agree with the poster who said that an EDC flashlight is one that is a reasonably small, general purpose flashlight that is expected to be useful under a variety of non-specialized circumstances and carried on one's person most of the time without the need for frequent hip replacement operations!
With this definition, I question the very high lumens mentioned by several posters here, since the need for either a room lighter or a yard lighter is really a specialized need. If the high lumens are going to be used extensively, then the battery requirements will be such that the light will no longer be considered an EDC flashlight.
Moreover the high lumens do not translate to long throw, because the form of the EDC light tends to be general (so no aspheric lenses, or specialized reflectors). An exception might be the Surefire TIR system, perhaps acceptable for general use if you are willing to also carry a diffuser with you (I do).
OK, so what about the max lumens on this EDC?
One good way to think about issues like this is to consider the lessons of history. The EDC that started it all was the HDS, and the most popular for a long time was the HDS 60. It had, you guessed it, 60 lumens on max. And I agree that 60 lumens is a very useful output. So we can consider 60 lumens as a kind of minimum.
The question then is, how much higher should the max lumen output be, considering all the advances in LED and emitter technology since the HDS 60?
Here runtime enters the equation, calculated with 1xC123A primary battery, the classic EDC configuration. If you prefer a 1xAA, no problem, but then you have to reduce the max lumen since the AA has less capacity than the C123A.
Again, some of the classic EDC flashlights put a minimum of 1 hour runtime (McGizmo PD-S, the updated HDS, etc.). So, you are talking 200 lumens or maybe a bit more depending on emitter efficiency. So that's your max lumen output.
Again, personally I feel that a flashlight that gives something like 60 lumens at some output level and has 200 lumen also available is a great combination.
Finally, what if you get say one of these new XM-L wonders with 500 lumens on max? And some type of UI that let's you access lower levels as well? Again, my personal belief is that you will use the 500 lumen output rarely, since most circumstances where it would be useful have to do with long throw, and you won't get that (XM-L is very inefficient for throw) and if you really want to access 500 lumens for reasonable lengths of time then you will find your flashlight getting longer or fatter or both, and definitely exiting the EDC definition.
