Hmm that's something I haven't thought about before. After looking at the two comparisons, the neutral white is definitely nicer outside. Is the TK35 neutral or cool? What about something like the p-rocket XM-L?
http://www.shiningbeam.com/servlet/the-97/**NEW**--P-dsh-Rocket-XM-dsh-L/Detail
Depends on the TK35 you get - mine's on the warm side of cool, and it's not as warm as my LD40, although the reflector's a decent depth. Some people have had very green TK35's as well as very blue ones. Mine's creamy white, leaning towards yellow... and it worked pretty well the last time I pulled it out in a park.
Last I checked, my Surefires and SF-clones don't require complete disassembly to change the batteries, so I think he's pretty safe against losing parts regardless. But upgradeability is a nice thing to have, hence all the upgrades available for Surefires and SF-clones.
It's nice to be able to upgrade, but at the same time if you're spending $80-100 on the drop-ins on top of the $120-130 for the original light whose most expensive component just got tossed onto a shelf, I consider that a bit of a waste, especially since that $80-$100 for the drop-in would've gotten you a perfectly serviceable light. Better to have two than one, in my books. The main reason Surefires were so modular wasn't because you could upgrade them easily, but because you could replace dead components in the field without having to send the whole light back to the manufacturer, IIRC. The fact you could build a new drop-in module was a bonus for enthusiasts, whereas being able to easily swap out dead sections was more important to their target market.
Budgeting is a problem, yes, and the monolithic lights win on that point. Still, if you consider you can do about 2-3 upgrades on a modular light before the standard drifts too far for new parts to fit anymore, AND you don't have whole leftover lights sitting unused in a drawer somewhere, the extra cost for the modular lights becomes easier to deal with.
So it's better to have modules which are useless without a body lying in a drawer somewhere, instead of whole lights which can be carried as backups or given away to others, or resold to friends/strangers? Again, the cost of the upgrades is pretty much the cost of a whole light these days, unless you're buying whole new Surefire units. And even then, not all the parts are interchangeable between series; it's not like you can drop an E2-compatable head on a G2 or L-series body, and vice-versa.
I think I'll stick with the whole-light route; yes, I've got an extra body and head lying around, but I can also pick it up if my primary dies or carry it as my backup, or hand it out as a loaner if someone bugs me for a light.
