I have an L&M ARC NiMh... I would maybe go LED if I were going to replace lights now, but it takes a reasonably expensive LED to cover the same lighting needs. The reflector design has a lot to do with how a light performs, and the L&M reflector when I was shopping was head and shoulders above what other folks were offering.
One aspect of their model that I kind of dig (now that I'm looking into what's going on in the marketplace) is that they retain the design of their battery to light interface, and offer newer lights in a package titled xxx-upgrade. i.e. if you buy the L&M, you get a good charger and battery that you can add an additional light head to when the new "latest and greatest" comes around.
If you have a long commute, the HID is worth it. If you have a lot of turning the light on and off, it's not such a great thing, as HID ballasts are burned out by the on-off cycles: if you are turning it on once for a three hour ride, it's a good deal. If you are turning it on and off for a half hour trip, you are rapidly going to be replacing a very expensive bulb.
FWIW, I also have a cheapo cateye blinky, as well as a cygolite dualcross 300. The blinky is in case the ARC runs out of batteries, and the cygolite is for running errands where I want to see, and am stopping and starting repeatedly.
Last edited by superslomo; 11-05-09 at 03:38 PM.
Reason: additional thoughts