X-cal- those 10mm Toshiba LEDs aren`t very good. Plain and simple. They`re bright, but the beam is a very narrow square shape with a hole in the centre, not a lot of good as a flashlight, hold on let`s see if I have a beam profile shot of one....sorry I can`t find one, I`ll take one tonight.
As for rewiring a DB, well if you can access the two positive and one negative wires, then here`s what you do. Disconnect the negative wire. Tape it off, you won`t need it anymore. Take the batteries out of one barell, reverse the polarity (maybe the carrier will just go in the other way? otherwise you may need to slightly alter the contacts to make sure they touch) and reinsert, negative end inwards. Leave the other one as it is. Now, use the positive wire from the tube with the reversed batteries as the negative, and the positive from the normal tube as the positive. The aluminim body that once carried the negative to the light, now connects the 2 battery tubes together and no connection to it is required.
I`m pretty sure this will work, now you should get 6 volts. But it will no longer work on just one tube like they do normally, you`ll need all 4 cells in place. Fit a dummy cell in one tube if it is driving the LEDs too much, or use a resistor to limit the current. It would be a good idea to mark the tube which has the batteries reversed just so you don`t get mixed up in the future.