Yeah true but whichever you program, a double click press gets you either. Hold for momentary or just click to stay on. Amazingly easy. I have mine click and hold for momentary use on medium, and a double click for max output.
And yes being fully potted, amazing service and warranty, etc I think personally it fulfills that guy's request about a comparable light. You may like one thing on one a bit more than another etc but I would def put it in same league (or IMO, much much better due to the other criteria you list
)
HDS are great, i EDCed a clicky for well over a year. but i much prefer the UI of my L1. its quick and simple. one night my brother-in-law randomly grabbed one of my lights on the desk to check under his car hood, he came right back in and said my HDS sucked cause he couldnt work it LoL, I had it set up for about 2 lumens when it clicks on.
in terms of brightness, if you put a RCR123 in a 6th gen L1, its blazing! as bright as my E2DL. even with a primary its no slouch, it looks much brighter than its rated 65 lumens.
its runtimes are also very impressive considering you get alot more lumens than HDS' low low modes for around the same time. a test was done on a HDS rotary, and it got 128 hours of sub-lumen level. a HDS clicky would get better runtime but not by a whole lot.
i did a runtime test on my L1 and got well over 100 hours, but for half that time it was at about 7 lumens, then it would gradually drop down to a sub lumen.
i do miss having a low low mode on my EDC at times, i usually just cover part of the beam in those situations.
im not saying one is better than the other, just saying i like my L1 more. :thumbsup: