Lots of owners with the old Infinity have cleaned off the paint around the "reflector" area. They have all reported a noticable increase in brightness and beam quality. I didn't clean mine, but after some months of EDC in extremely hot weather and with my corrosive sweat, the paint just fell off by itself (with a little bit of help from me). Oddly enough, the paint on the sides of the body didn't fall off as much. Because I didn't have to sand it off, the surface was very smooth and reflective, much like what you get with a new Arc-AAA. If you do sand it off, you will have to polish it to a smooth reflective surface.