I once was going to accompany my son to the national Boy Scout camp in New Mexico. Ordered a mid-range back-pack made by a very high-end pack company (Gregory). The box came and it was like 3x3x6 inches - turned out the vendor had erroneously shipped me a fanny pack. I called, frantic. We were leaving on a test hike the next weekend. The seller was helpful. "Well do have the top of the line Gregory pack, and given the situation, I can let you have it for half-price". Half price was a little more than the price I wanted to pay, but hey, it was a great pack. So I got this pack (called a "Denali" and which people actually use to scale Denali) and was really proud of it.

So we go on our test hike, which was near Hawk Mountain, PA. This is a point that's on the Appalachian trail. We climbed to the top of Hawk Mountain. It was gorgeous. Our Scoutmaster called us over to introduce someone. He'd met and started talking with an Appalachian trail through-hiker. Someone doing the 2200 mile hike. He talked with our scouts. Then he noticed my pack. He had a very small Gregory pack - almost the size of the fanny pack I originally had! He looks at me and says "How do you like your Gregory?". Kind of felt like an idiot. Like if Greg Lemond noticed that I was wearing $400 competition bike shoes and asked me "Gee, how do you like those shoes?". Greg's cool, and wouldn't do that, but you get the point.

Point is, sometimes having the absolute best stuff is a little embarrassing (unless, of course, you can back it up!) So the huge tail light is not really necessary. Unless it comes with a death ray that you can set to automatically overheat the engines and melt the tires of cars that pass you too closely. I'd like that.