Hello Chrispy,
In my personal experience, and I'm sure this is shared by many others: Rechargeable options, especially those compact lithium-ion options, make it possible to truly appreciate incans without the guilt of feeding a constant stream of expensive primary cells. Incans are power hungary, and a lot of that juice just gets converted to heat in the process. Knowing that you can keep recharging and using without knowing that so much is going down the drain makes using an incan far more rewarding. The M6 with the HOLA option, is a very neat flashlight, but at a rate of 6 CR123s every 15-20 minutes, it has an astronomical cost of operation. What tends to happen is that, when you know your usage is directly associated with having to fork over more for cells, you tend to "conserve" your usage, and not use the light in as many opportunities as you might otherwise.
Using li-ion in a flashlight does require a little bit of understanding of those cells, how they work, and how to properly care for them and use them to stay safe and effective. There are some modern advancements li-ion battery technology that really change the rules. If runtime is not an issue, there are some very compact options possible that can produce massive output, output and throw that rivals most LEDs, but in these setups, runtime isn't measured in hours, it's measured in minutes. On the other end of the spectrum, there are some very conservative setups that can run for well over an hour, that produce useful levels of illumination that is pleasant and reliable and practical in many applications. In any case, when you know in the back of your mind that you can recharge it at any time, you are actually more likely to TRY to use the flashlight whenever possible, to try to make use of your investment in rechargeable cells, and just, because it's fun to turn on a small piece of sunlight.
Without a price range specified for an incan that you will fall in love with, it's hard to make a recommendation. The nice thing about a SureFire M6 is that it's easy to fall in love with it's design and appearance. It just jumps out as being something special. But with an MSRP over $400, your wallet may not love it at all... (depends what kind of income bracket you are in I supposed!).... I own one, but I shouldn't, it's way over my income bracket and is one of those purchases that for many of us, (like myself), is made because after years in this hobby, it just seems like it's time to own one, or for various other reasons of nostalgia.
It also helps that I can write it off on my Taxes since i am building and selling battery adapters for it... That aside, as a first incan to fall in love with, the M6 would not be my recommendation, I would say that your desire to own one may grow in time, but it will be for reasons beyond pure performance to price/size ratio etc etc. Having said that, if you can comfortably afford an M6, go for it
My recommendation is to have a look at the Wolf-Eyes M90 series of lights. The D36 mini-turbo configuration is a nice balance between throwing capability and head size. Holstered, lights like this are still very portable. Running on either 2x18650, 3x18500, or 3x18650 size li-ion cell (depending on configuration options), the light has great output, a decent balance of throw and flood in most bulb options, and reasonable runtimes. My personal recommendation would be a standard M90 12V, (to act as host), a Pila IBC charger, 2 or 4 AW brand protected 3.7V 18650 Li-Ion cells, upgrade the bulb to a LumensFactory EO-9L. This will be a nice intro to "good" incandescent configurations that still have some winning angles against LED's.
Eric
