So your happy to pay more, for marketing that the light is brighter even though you wont notice the difference?
It comes down to marketing and money making. 4sevens don't upgrade the emitter for the customer. They do it to stay ahead in terms of latest and greatest, to sell more lights and make more money.
If there are no noticeable or usable advantage to the user, what is the point of the upgrade apart from the intrinsic comfort of it being the "latest and greatest"?
To me it screams that they aren't confident in selling products that are a few months "out of date" as people will not want them as much as the newer "7% brighter" model...
If the new S2 emitter lights had longer runtime, or noticeable difference in output then fair enough. But to "upgrade" something, where there isn't any actual difference that the user can perceive is pointless and merely marketing.
"Why not greater runtimes? I think you know the answer. Cost. R&D, ECN's (Engineering Change Notices) and manufacturing. It's much quicker, simpler to drop in a new LED from the same family and go. Especially when you know that the S2 runs are going to be in very short supply. Why go through all of the additional work for something that's not available for the medium term?"
SO pay more for nothing apart from a number... Why?
"I for one, Thank 4sevens for doing what he can, without spending a lot of time/effort in manufacturing. The slight change in cost, looks to me to be almost completely due to the LED cost itself, you can't get much better than that."
I prefer manufacturers that take the time and effort to make things work effectively when and how they are supposed to, and not rush things for a new chip that will be outdated next week... oh but it's "7% brighter!" :ironic:
Once again, he does it for his business, not you.
And again, you are happy to pay more, for something that will perceivably work exactly the same as the different numbered emitter... that's fine, but I wouldn't.
:shrug:
I too am all for improvements, hence why I don't buy every single new emitter light that is released... I wait for significant upgrades. For instance the transition from XR-E to XP-G.
Anyway, brighter is not always better. I recently bought a 100 lumen Hi CRI Ra Clicky... Am I crazy or what! How outdated!