To help you catch up, yeah; Nitecore has become the most innovative brand out there. Unfortunately part of how they've pulled that off is with proprietary batteries, and with certain models, enclosed proprietary batteries.
Another perspective - from the other side of the fence (electronics industry):
The freedom to design more innovative products often comes as a direct result of having the freedom to use bespoke power supplies (cells/batts), most notably but not limited to 'lipo', etc., which can be made to occupy almost every cubic millimeter that can be provided in a device, including rather irregular shapes. Products like the notebook I'm typing on are a perfect example. The kind of 'form factor' design freedom that this allows is a big reason why I bought it. It's now an almost 10 year old design, just for perspective, so this ain't exactly news. I'm an EET who just paid someone to replace the battery in this dang thing recently. No, that didn't make me happy (I was kicking and screaming all the way to the shop), but the product advantages more than make up for that. All it took was using my last behemoth notebook (backup) for 24 hours to make me appreciate my newer one and stop whining about it.
This has made its way into many portable electronic devices, and is a trend not likely to be reversed, but rather expanded. We can whine about it all we want, but it's wasted energy, because that will not alter this course. We might as well pee into the wind. In product design / engineering, it's mostly about priorities and tradeoffs, like most of life. One must consider the priorities of the target market, but not expect to be a member of all of those segments; that would be totally unrealistic. 'Our' priorities (CPF types) are often not aligned with those of the larger target flashlight market segments, but plenty of lights are still being designed with more traditional and flexible power options (like most of the ones you and I buy / use), and one is still free to choose those designs if they meet one's priorities better than those of John or Jane Doe flashlight buyer. I still have no trouble finding more lights that suit me than I can afford to buy;-). I don't expect what we might want to remain (or become) mainstream design. The companies who really specialize in lights with (increasingly) minority priorities are those with very small headcounts, and likely revenues. They will not be the ones carrying flashlight design into the future, or the mainstream. They don't have the resources to do that even if they wanted to. SL comes close, but they're a very large
U.S flashlight company. There are still plenty of lights for us to buy which may better meet our
traditional priorities, and I don't whine because companies are designing products for their larger market, as that's a required business decision in most cases. Most would no longer be in business if they didn't.
I'm a 'car nut', but how many of the vehicles that I see on the street would I ever consider owning / driving? The % is negligible. That doesn't bother me in the least, or even enter into my thinking. I don't care what the masses are driving, as long as they don't crash into me with them. I have to look at flashlights the same way, else I would go crazier than I already am! So I need to stay in my 'market segment'; and how is that different from anything else in the realm of consumer products? It's not.
I largely agree with your sentiments, but at the end of the day, we have to live in the same real world with everyone else (unfortunately).
We now return you to our regularly scheduled programming.
I have a flashlight order to place now, for one which meets
my needs (but I'm pretty sure you'd approve of), and which I can still buy - if I can find the funds to pay for it!
