I've had an Arc AAA for many years now. Just the other month I decided to try and clean it up, since I've recently gotten more into flashlights and in the past I never bothered to try and do any maitenance with my ARC. So I took a LUX reading before I did anything. After cleaning the contacts with DeoxIT there was a noteable improvement in output. I would imagine when the light was new it had similar, or the same, output, but over the years a lot of crude built up on the contacts, threads, etc.
I also polished up the reflector and the LED itself with a q-tip and some 0.25 micron diamond paste. The reflector got scratched up over the years, and even the LED got scratched up. The polishing paste polished up the reflector, removing scratches, and it removed scratches from the LED's lens as well. Went back to the LUX meter, even more improvement.
So a light will oxidize/corrode over the years, and may suffer damage and wear to the front lens/exposed reflector, etc.
So it may just need some TLC and a fresh battery.