Replaceable LED bulbs.

My biggest gripe with this whole LED flashlight thing is that they all have hard-wired LED's that can't be easily replaced. Why would I want to replace the LED you ask? Because as we're now finding out, today's LED's might last a lifetime but not at full brightness. The brightness diminishes pretty significantly over a fairly short period of time compared to the 50k-100k hours that most of them are advertised as lasting. And every time you want a different color, you have to buy a whole new light (I know, why would a flashaholic have a problem with buying more lights? I'd rather buy a new one because of its form factor, not because the bulb needs replacing). Also, LED technology will certainly change many more times in the future, rendering most of today's LED flashlights obsolete.

Maybe manufacturers could use the PR type bulb as the standard (like the Everled) or some other form that would be widely available and non-proprietary. There would obviously be some problems that would have to be worked out first, like voltage regulation for instance. You'd probably want to avoid regulation circuitry built into the bulb itself since that would increase costs of the bulb (the Everled sells for about $40). Since most LED's run at about the same voltage, regulation could easily be built into the flashlight instead. Even with varying voltage requirements and multiple LED's, circuitry can be designed to adjust to what's needed.

Just my thoughts.

Don't forget that with the more powerful LEDs, like the Luxeons, you need physical connection to a good heatsink. This can sometimes be done mechanically, with bolts and screws and goop in between, but sometimes there are space restrictions, so the LED must be epoxied on.

PR bases are not the answer as there isn't a good enough heat extraction path. But perhaps a bolted down star or a retaining ring for emitters.