wyeast

I actually prefer a combination of lights. One blinkie, plus one or two moderately priced mid-level lights. The blinkie for attention-getting, and the other lights for seeing the road.

Having multiple lights gives you a redundancy you can't get w/ a multi-stage single "uber" light. It won't help you if the batteries run flat, or it falls off the bike, or something else goes wrong. It also allows you to "shape" the beam - you can see some examples here (as well as pics of the Coleman at night for Wildcatnj) of creating a pattern vs a single bright area.