I'll defer to you... I thought they were "preferred" especially for use in explosion proof type environments.
Underwater Kinetics gets that nod. Legendary for their popularity with workers who go in harm's way, when a tiny spark could trigger a massive explosion. Not popular at all with the typical Flashaholic crowd. But many of us do acknowledge the company for the incredible specialized lights that they make. Lumen ratings aren't incredibly high (but on their lights, they don't need to be). Very pricey. But again, very specialized lights and they're actually Made in the USA. I was lucky to pick up a 4AA eLED model a short while back that was on sale. (They practically never get put on sale.)
As for Pelican, they do have a range of specialized lights. But against their closest competitors, Pelican usually comes up short. Their clone of the incandescent SureFire 6P was a winner. And several years back Pelican's rechargeable 7060 model was chosen as the new standard-issue light of the LAPD. The brand hasn't had a huge (or small) victory since though.
Back when their 6P clone was switched over to LED, a huge scandal broke out. Now industry standard with
most brands is to report lumens numbers at the emitter, not Out The Front. (SureFire uses OTF numbers and a small handful of other brands do too.) Emitter numbers will always be less than realistic OTF numbers. Usually right around 1/3 less. Take a brand's claimed output number, and divide by 1/3 to get a more realistic number for output. Unfortunately, with that model, Pelican just decided to make up the number out of thin air! Pretty soon, folks noticed! And not just on here, but out in the real world.
I used to buy my lights from Brick & Mortar stores during the early days of my collecting. Maybe a year or two before joining CPF. An all everything lighting small shop near Madison Square Garden, owner knew me by my face. Had bought a few lights from him. Walked in one day, saw a Pelican M6 LED in the display case. Wanted to buy it.
He literally refused to sell it to me! Told me that the output was a blatant lie, and that I was better off without it! He just refused to let me buy it. I thanked him, and walked out. Just a surreal experience.