Its a little like shopping for cars by only comparing horsepower, and just buying whatever has the most horsepower w/o worrying about reliability, number of seats or cargo capacity, mpg, off road ability, autocross ability, crash worthiness, etc.
Everyone's needs are different. I could not get through my average day w/o several thousand lumens at the high end. Others can't even IMAGINE needing more than 100 lumens.
I CAN imagine SOME PEOPLE getting through a day with no flashlight at all, or, needing only a fauxton, etc...as that type of use is very common. If you need to find a key in a purse/where you just dropped it, where the hole is, sure....no problemo.
If you go into burned out buildings and need to search warehouses or large areas, a fauxton can't cut it. A floody 100 lumen light can't cut it, nor can a 100 L tight beamed light. If your life involves larger spaces, and the need to see in the dark there, you need a larger light to handle it....or really good low light vision, etc.
It depends on your own life, and what that entails.
The other issue is that lumens are, as horsepower would be, something that can be distributed differently.
300 HP is a lot in a Fiat 500 sized car, and, a bit anemic in a full sized truck that has to pull a 10,000 lb load, etc. Torque might be more important for certain tasks, for example...and, what the tasks are, and the form factor of the vehicle can change what the HP needs to be.
If you had a race, would you want a 300 HP Fiat 500, or, a 300 HP Full Sized Pick up truck?
What if the race was across the Baja Desert? Through a tight autocross course?
Its the same for a light.
Some lights use a lower total output, but project the beam farther than lights with a higher total output.
Sometimes you WANT less throw to GET a flood of light, and, sometimes, you want the opposite. It depends on the task at hand.
If you don't have the light WITH YOU, you can't USE it.
After a certain size/form factor, and that is ALSO different for everyone....you can't practically carry it with you as EDC, its too inconvenient.
If you can carry a lot of/enough spare cells, run time is less of a concern, but, if you just carry the light, and, you might NEED a longer runtime, the runtime becomes VERY important.
If you have a 1,000 L light, and need to see for a long time, that 1,000 L is chewing through your MAH like a swarm of e-termites.
Having a sufficient LOW to allow sufficient lighting for the duration of whatever the disaster/emergency situation caused the issue in the first place, can be a lifesaver....literally.
So, just getting the latest high Lumen wonder light, just because it IS the latest high lumen wonder light, is chasing HP w/o considering anything else.
If you have the disposable income, so it just doesn't matter...you "collect the lights with the most lumens at that moment in time", and that's your hobby, sure.
If you buy tools to do a job, and, when you have a tool that does the job...you keep it, and if its not doing the job as well as you need it to, you replace it with something that does the job better, fine...that's OK too.
If you only have so much money to spend, and you start chasing lumens, you'll go broke. Remember, lumens go up all the time, and what's the highest today, may not be tomorrow.
If you shop by need instead, you can afford to upgrade when it makes sense.
