Years ago: the River Rock "1/2 watt" LED. I was in Target and saw their flashlight/battery rack. I thought about getting a mini-mag in red, but poked around a little more, and they had the River Rock 2AAA LED light for $7.99 [a lot of money for me to ask a parent for, I thought]. I knew about LED's, a little, and knew they were brighter and didn't burn out, so I managed to convince my mom that she should buy it.
It was the brightest light in the house, lol, at about 10-12 lumens with a purple/blue tinted hotspot and very little spill. But it threw out an impressive [at the time] beam of light, ran forever on a pair of Duracell AAA's, survived a few trips through the wash. It couldn't be beat.
I started googling around, looking for a review, and found the flashlight reviews archive page. I spent hours poring over the various pages of lights, reading every review, comparing lights features, outputs, prices... The one I found most impressive then, was the then-new HDS EDC Ultimate 60! I knew I just had to have one, but at many, many times the cost of my river rock, I knew that was impossible. So I had to sate my appetite with online reviews.
A few years later, I found the reviews section on CPF [really weird, a website where people talk about "flashlights"]. Seeing the march of time and technology, I began searching anew. About a year after that, I was in Scouts, so I needed a good light or two for camping and hiking. I stumbled upon a great deal on a princeton tec Aurora headlamp [it was $30 retail, way, way too much for me to spend] at a yard sale for $10, so I snapped it up. I've used it for years, until about last year, when a set of Duracells leaked in it and destroyed it...
I wanted something bright and impressive. Then, as now, most lights seemed to run on CR123, which were $15 a pop at my local rite-aid [and still are, lol]. So I needed to stick with AA powered lights. After months of research, I settled on a Fenix LD20 premium Q5. Great light, excellent output and throw, considering it is literally the size and weight of a mini-mag. Reading more of the cons of using alkaline batteries, and experiencing <10 minute run times on turbo with fresh duracells, I invested in a duracell "duraloop" Ni-MH charger and a few sets of batteries.
And since then, I've collected various HDS lights, a Quark Ti AA, a Surefire E2L turned Milkyspit Expurgator, and E1E, a Surefire KL1 head, a lumapower D1... And am still looking. Nothing has jived right as my HDS lights, but I still like to collect, even if I'm more "catch and release" style now, due to the expense.