Not owning any AW cells, could they have their own designed PCB's for their branded batteries that gives reason for Forrest to believe that AW cells are safer?
I do not know what protection circuits they use. I suspect they are probably well chosen, although I would doubt they are a ground up AW only design and more likely just specced and bought in from elsewhere.
That said, even the cheapest of protection circuits fail very infrequently. So it's not exactly a major safety issue.
And lets not forget, not all Li-ion batteries come with protection circuits anyway.
Most cells of 3400 mAh capacity use a Panasonic based cell. I'm sure that Panasonic has various grades of batteries just like Cree does with binning their led's. They are still 3400 mAh cells, but may have minor flaws that don't make them a "select" cell.
It's not about flaws, it's about internal resistance and matched capacities.
If you have ever been part of the RC world, racing buggies/cars/trucks. Then in days past you'll know how important it is to have matched cells and ones with low internal resistance. Companies like Team Orion, Trinity and many others, none actually made the batteries, but they would match up ones with almost identical specs (tested specs) and the highest voltages. But you paid more for this.
Li-ion isn't quite the same, but it also isn't so different either.
