Hmmm, for your budget you might just try some LED upgrades for your maglites.
I love the 3 watt diamond luxeon led replacement bulb for my 3-D cell Maglite. It is designed for 3-C or D cell lights only. But you can buy a "dummy cell" for it to work in 4 cell lights. It's super-bright, focus-able, & the batteries last a really long time. The 1 watt version is still pretty bright for even 3 times the battery life than the 3 watt version. They also make colored versions of the bulb. The 3 watt luxeon 3-D cell MagLite is my favorite super-bright big light & heavy club combo. There's supposed to be a 6.5 to 8 watt version of it if you want to give someone a sunburn, blind someone, & don't mind a much shorter battery life.
For 2xaa MiniMags you should try the TerraLux 1 watt Luxeon LED bulb for the brightest mini mag around. It's also focus-able. These higher powered LEDs will extend your battery life a lot, but not as much as dimmer traditional LED MagLite replacements will... which are not focus-able BTW.
Nite-Ize make one of these dimmer 4-LED non-focus-able bulbs for 2Xaa MiniMags that put out quite a bit of light for about $7-$10. The batteries last incredibly long because they draw a lot less power than a bright Luxeon LED light. It's been said by twisting the MiniMag on & off hard, you may break the LED replacement, so I recommend the LED bulb & tail-cap switch combo they make for about $9-$12.
TerraLux also makes a bright MicroStar1 LED replacement that will fit both the 2xAAA & the 2xAA Mini Mags. It puts out a whopping 20 lumens of light... pretty good for any MiniMag. It's also somewhat focus-able. But with that kind of power you can only expect about 4-5 hours of useful light with 2 AAA cells, & about 15-18 hours of good light with 2 AA cells. They also make a MiniStar1 4-LED replacement for 2-AA MiniMags, which is not focus-able or as bright, so don't confuse the 2.
Just within your budget is a really cool light, the Arc AAA P (premium edition). It's a solid metal, olive colored, super-bright LED light that runs on a single AAA battery! I leave mine on my key-chain most of the time. I found out the hard way, because of it's tiny size, & color, it's very easily lost! I carefully ground the olive coating off the front & back so there's something shiny to see if I lose this one. It runs down to 50% brightness in 5 hours, but believe me, at 50% it's still pretty bright for such a tiny light. With a 1000mah good rechargeable AAA in it, it still put out some usable light after 8 hours of running thanks to it's booster/regulator circuit, but petered out just short of the 9th hour. It's about the smallest bright one that can get you through the whole night without changing the battery. The regular Arc AAA is a little dimmer, but a single cell lasts even longer in them.
If you want maximum battery longevity, you won't find a super bright small one with extra long battery life. More light requires more power, which means a shorter running time, or more, or larger batteries. For maximum useful battery life in a small light, check out the single AA & single AAA Shorelite dimmable LED flashlights. They're also pretty cheap. Most LED "purist collectors" around here don't like them, but I love them. I always throw a few of them in a case or backpack when hiking or camping. I have a few laying around in drawers, & in my shop. They get used all the time.
Their single AA version has 4 brightness settings & 2 almost white LEDs (blue tint). The top 3 brightnesses are bright enough for most small light uses. The lowest setting is just barely usable, & wouldn't want to follow a trail at night in the forest on that setting unless I had no other choice. It's a great nightlight setting. With a single 2700mah rechargeable AA in it, on the high setting, it stayed at almost full brightness for well over 24 hours before dimming thanks to it's built in booster/regulator circuit. On it's lowest setting it stayed the same brightness for almost SIX days! It has a non-adjustable clip to clip on things or your hat.
Their AAA version has similar features, with 4 brightness settings. It uses a singe LED. It has a focusing lens (but not adjustable) in front of the LED to make a little tighter beam than you'd usually get from a standard LED. It comes with a removable, fully adjustable clip. It's also small & light enough to fit on any key-chain. With a single 1000mha AAA in it, on the high setting, it ran for 9 hours before noticeably dimming. On the lowest setting it ran for 3 days! These make great book-lights & laptop lights if you clip them onto something above or behind you. These are so light you can even clip them on a small nail, screw, or large tack sticking out the wall.
Shorelites are made of plastic but are well made & very durable... until you have to get them apart to replace the battery. They're very fragile when apart, & I can see having an accident with them that way. Fortunately the battery lasts so incredibly long, you won't have to replace them often. When they're back together proper, they're pretty solid, but I wouldn't step on one with heavy biker boots. These are not super bright lights, but very useful, long lasting, economical, & fun. Toss a few to the kids to play with too... they'll hold up.
On a budget the Streamlight Stylus is quaint for about $12. Brighter than most other standard, cheap, single LED lights, it runs on 3 AAAA batteries. It's about the size of a pen, but slightly longer. The 3 AAAA alkaline batteries can be obtained cheap from many sources. Amazon has a 6-pack of them for about $6-$7. If you tear off the metal around a "copper top" alkaline 9 volt battery with a couple of pliers you'll find 6 aaaa batteries inside. But beware... the AAAAs inside the 9 volt battery have the polarity reversed! So you must put those in your Streamlight BACKWARDS. You should also stretch the light's tail-cap spring out a little for a tight fit & better contact. This won't effect it if you go back to ordinary batteries, just make sure to get the polarity right.
I used to take the light everywhere, & was always with me at work (I use other lights more now). As an engineer, I used it several times daily for over a year with the original batteries. I thought it might be getting a little dimmer so recently put fresh batteries in it. Although it got brighter, not significantly, so I put the old batteries back in. This light just won't die. It fell 14' from a ladder onto solid concrete, into puddles, snow, & got paint & glue on it. Using harsh chemicals & scraping to get all the paint & glue off, it still looks & works like brand new. I don't know what they used to paint that light with, but there's not a scratch on it anywhere... no dents yet either.
The stylus light is not electronically regulated, but current regulated by a simple resistor. It's a simple, but durable, handy, cheap light.
All this stuff can be found at Amazon, & you'll find customer reviews on them. But I'm sure some on this forum can point you to a place that might have some better prices.
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here, I appriciate your input
