I never understood why throw is so important to people... 95% of the time I'm looking at something less than 20 m away. I find a bright hotspot makes me nauseous when walking.
The only time I want throw is for fun to look at something across the river, or very rarely a deer or owl.
Unless you're on a boat, hunting, or searching for something far away, I think a floody light is superior (if you had to choose only 1 light).
Change my mind
I'll bite; for discussion purposes, let's consider three focal regions: working, walking, and searching, say..
Working; less than 5m, where a head-mounted light works best. 1000 lumens is plenty, unless you're trying to see under car seats in broad daylight. ZebraLight shines brightest here, [pun intended] with their epic 80 degree spill-cone
Walking at night; 5m to 15m, where you don't want to step into a hole, but you also don't want to be blinded as you would be holding a 4,000 lm light bulb. Given said spills for Working & Searching; I guesstimate a 72 degree spill cone here ~ ymmv
Searching; 15m++ where you want to pump as many lumens as possible into the hot-spot for maximum range. For example, my oLight SR52-UT throws out to 800 meters with a reasonable 64 degree spill-cone that doesn't compromise my night adapted vision
If you're limited to one light, make it EDC'able; the best light is the one you have..
Most people won't EDC a walking or search light, so, yes; EDC's are best floody
To be clear, we're talking about larger, secondary, flashlights here; our big guns.
Thus, every non-EDC'able light I consider *must* have a reduced spill cone ==> and, sadly, very few of them do
Although all of us qualify EDC differently, I firmly assert that there's no justification for a secondary light to be floody. Subsequently, when I'm reaching for my big-guns, the SC700d doesn't work for me
Fwiw, I EDC an ancient ZL SC600 in my pocket, pack an OL SR52 in my car, and I'm currently shopping for a walking light. The SC700d came really close :-(
