SharpT, you're well on your way to achieving geekiness.

I would go with the NiMH battery, I feel the weight of my SLA battery and it's half the size of yours. You may want to also consider getting a second charger for work, batteryspace has them pretty cheap. I like to run my lights in the daytime if it's raining and I charge at work if I run lights on the way in.

The Optronics web site is confusing and inaccurate -- and the vendors that sell them are no better. The lights I got didn't come with lenses, they just had bulbs with attached lenses. The QH-8CC doesn't seem to be available anywhere; what I got from JC Whitney was the fog light version, the QH-12IT. The only difference between the driving lights and the fog lights are that they fog lights come with yellow bulbs, which I discarded anyway because they were 50 watts.

I'm curious about the weight on the QH-7CC, whether the body is chromed plastic or solid metal.

The bulb you listed is not correct for these lights. The only 10 watt MR-16 I've been able to find is this one: http://www.sailboatstuff.com/lt_G4_MR11_MR16.html

To mount the Optronics light I like this bracket: http://www.nashbar.com/profile.cfm?c...eid=&pagename= . It meshes nicely with the bracket the light comes with. You can put each light on it's own bracket and mount them separately. I have them mounted together; what I did was cut about a 4" piece of 3/4" aluminum angle and drill three holes it. Each light attaches to one hole and the third hole goes to the bracket. I then painted it black for appearance sake.

Once you get geeked up, you may want to consider a 12v rear light as well. I have the popular yellow strobe and a red LED truck marker light wired in.