For Average Joe the LL P7 and P14 are certainly a good choice, direct driven and designed to use disposable alkaline batteries.
No sudden darkness and no hassle with lousy rechargeables.
Water resistance is good enough for normal use.
Price... HA-II tube, lens, a few resistors, unknown led... Do I hear 40$, no? 30$, anyone? 20$? C'mon people these are really really good flashlights developed in the German flashlight institute, let me shine this thing to your eyes sir isn't it bright, yes only 80 bucks for this state of the art flashlight thank you very much please come again.
I can't speak personally for p14 ownership but I'm certainly a very average joe with a P7 and those good things listed about it are all good thigns. I've got plenty of use and runtime out of Duracell alkalines in my year of use and I never go swimming with a torch so it's as water proof as I'll ever want.
The other more sarcastically mentioned aspects? - Well, I have no wish to know what specific electrical componentry is inside any of my torches nor do I care to differentiate between resistors, IC's, diodes and the like since to my uneducated eye they are all just miniature electromaggurggens of one type or another one finds in a component catalogue.
I can't see one electromaggurggen being worth much more than another anyway so whether the builder chooses one teensy tiny component over another makes no difference to me in terms of whether I think a torch is worth more or less than another brand or type.
I'm not a torch technophile, I'm far more interested in the torch's case and the beam that shoots out of it. Is it bright? Well actually all brands seem to be. The shape of the beams seems to me to be where one falls down against another, not the actual brightness. Do they run a long time? Well they all seem to when one considers how bright they all are.
In practice in the field I can't seem to find a way to tell the difference in efficacy between any of my supposedly "regulated" torches and the P7. I turn em on, they illuminate my target, when they get too dim to see the target I change batterioes. ALL my torches seem to do that, regulated or otherwise.
I'm either dumb or such feautures just don't make a difference in my usage pattern. It's just like knowing whether my computer has a pentium or a whatsamagoogle, it gets the job I want done efficiently, what componentry it does it with, I don't care frankly I'm not smart enough or aware enough to tell which one has what.
As to the "quality" of the P7 well there's three parts to quality for me, the light that comes out the front, the solidity of the case itself and the reliability of the unit. My P7 torch stays hell bright for a long time so point one, check. The case/body of the P7 appears to be strong, smooth in the hand, aesthetically shaped with no silly ridges or changes of diameter in the main body, everything fits tightly into a solid feeling unit and until I came to this site I never knew (and still don't yet care) what is HA-II and what is not since they all to me just look like black aluminium. Sure, some of the black paint has worn off my P7 on its edges but the case doesn't appear to be in danger of wearing through to the point of the batteries escaping captivity yet (and not for a couple of centuries use by the look of it) so point two, check. The torch has operated for a year being dropped, battered and used with not a single glitch so point three, check too.
Judged using my criteria it sounds to this particular member of the great unwashed to be as good a quality unit as any of the other torches I've come across and my unfortunate experience with buying five other brand torches in an attempt to try to replace the P7 (I wanted to get rid of the need for buying AAA's) seems to adequately demonstrate to me that even though it has a higher price, the P7 is well worth it and of better quality. My P7 is the only LED torch I've bought that didn't require some work on arrival or in service to "make right".
Yep, for this joe average it's high priced compared to some other torches but worth it. Mind you, I guess it ain't really that expensive when looked at comparitively in the real world. For the price of a tank of fuel ($1.35 a litre in my town) for a number of my jaguars I can buy one and a third P7's so a P7's price is basically throw away money anyway.
That all said, I reckon it could do with some improvements like a clip, a switch that was not so easily bumped on and a lock of some sort to ensure the head stays held at the focal point I set it to. The battery size was abig problem for me but I can't complain about it having triple A's anymore since I've just gone out and got some Imedion rechargeables and a Maha C9000 to charge them with so that solves my biggest gripe, the cost (and the sometimes scarcity) of batteries to feed it.
I've managed to convince myself that the P7 still does it for me over my TK20, Quark AA2, Fenix L1D wiht 2xAA tube and Nitecore D10 (though the D10 is pretty damned impressive for such a little guy). It sure looks like I'm in the minority in this forum on the internet but I've never actually met anyone out here in the sticks with a P7 that doesn't love it.
I read a little about the Fenix lights and think that might be my second purchase.
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Newer ones (P series) are better designed. 
