They are tough, reliable and timeless. I trust that my Surefires will still work when other lights stop working.
I still use a lot of my "obsolete" Surefires. I am not trying to justify the cost to myself. They put out enough light before the LED light reigned supreme, and they still put out enough light. So I continue to use them. My E1L uses a Luxeon. Nobody uses Luxeon now. But the E1L is still useful. I use it.
Their newer lights are even better. The discontinued Cree E2L runs for 9 hours, of solid, regulated runtime. That's 45 lumens, 9 hours, and a tightly focused beam. Then it runs even longer after that, but with diminishing output. I have three of these.
They are not designed with flashaholics in mind, but for real users. Let me clarify- Surefire's perceived market is a user who doesn't want a complicated interface-- they just want light when they want it. For these people, the flashlight is a means to an end, and not an end in itself. Many companies in the limelight nowadays tailor their lights specifically to CPF's needs and wants. For some time, Surefire's goals and flashaholic goals coincided, but now that flashlights are far more complicated than they used to be, this is no longer as much the case.
If you ask anybody here what their dream light is, I'm certain that the majority of people will say "like a Surefire xx, but..." This is where modders come in.