I recall my BEREC had an impressively engineered lens and a wonderful shaped beam pattern. In addition, it presented a nice, big, round light to the rest of traffic, rather than the intense pinpoint of so many of today's headlamps. The run time was excellent, too.
Admittedly, it was rather let down by its 3W filament bulb.
Great point about the pin prick of light. You can have a 2500 lumen light but if it's a very small lens surface all the motorists see is a very small light and that disables their brain in telling exactly how far away they are from the light source because we're all use to seeing large lights found on cars and motorcycles. When I tested my lights at night with my wife in a car coming toward me from 4 blocks away the very first light she noticed immediately when she rounded the corner towards me was the Philips because, as she put observed, she saw a large light and saw that first before she noticed the pin prick light size of the Cygolite MityCross 480 and could more accurately judge her distance from her to me.
Obviously we can't have lights the size of car lights but the size of the lens should be something that should be considered when purchasing a light. The Philips, I think though not sure, has the largest lens of any light I've seen, but there may others that are equal or maybe larger?