If you had a 225 lumen and 180 lumen light in front of you, you would be HARD PRESSED to see any meaningful difference between the 2. If you were handed the 2 lights, and one was 180 and on was 225, and there was no indication of which was 180 and which was 225, it would probably take you at least a full minute of comparative testing to determine which was which, IF you even could.
If they had the same exact beam pattern AND tint, then you could probably decide which was which within 15-20 seconds. But any variation in beam pattern or tinting would make it more difficult.
I understand the desire to have accurate lumen and runtime figures listed for flashlights. Unfortunately, the world is not perfect and it's simply not going to happen. A company that underrates on some of their products areas, and overrates in others, and rounds to nice sounding "round" numbers does just as much dis-service to those who are trying to get a real true comparison on paper as the companies who list exaggerated emitter lumens. Does SureFire own an integrating sphere? Yes. Do they test their flashlights? Probably. Do they actually tell you the exact results of testing on the IS? Nope. You think the P60L is exactly 80 lumens? If you actually ran the tests yourself, you would have results probably something like 84.8378245 lumens on one module, and like 87.781925 lumens on the next module, and then 91.00003433 lumens on the next module, and 82.2347895 on the next one. Unfortunately, that looks weird, like a serial number of something, and doesn't make for very good sounding spec sheets. A ~10% margin of error or more from one to the next is very possible, but you wouldn't be able to see it. They do what a responsible company would do, and list it at 80 lumens. Which is more like a guaranteed minimum.
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Anyways, the point is, if you are buying a LED light that uses any of the modern emitters on the market. Then it's going to be a pretty bright light. The most important differences from one to the next are not the 20-50% difference in actual or claimed output, as that is not enough difference in lumens to have any effect on what the flashlight is going to be good at doing. Instead, pick out a flashlight that has the proper beam profile and interface and size and runtime to meet the demands of the application at hand. Search an rescue? 2x18650 powered thrower. room clearing? M60F in a reliable SureFire host. Caving? something with multiple modes and long runtimes with a medium beam profile.
