OK, I'm t he OP and here's what I did. I searched most of the flashlights suggested and decided to keep, but upgrade the Maglites I have, use my Makita 18V flashlight and buy some cheap LED lights from Costco mostly because they did an acceptable job and were cheap. I learned there are a lot of good flashlights out there.
Part of this was pointed out here about how good the rechargeables--like the Makita were. I do use mine frequently but--duh--I forgot about it so I'm going to rely on it more. The Maglites didn't get used much but I upgraded with Xenon bulbs and that improved the light dramatically. I've got four big D cell Maglites so that solved that problem. The Xenon bulb conversions were only a few dollars each.
Finally, I needed a small LED light for my pocket. Even though i'm not real impressed with my three AAA small Duracell Costco LED lights, they wound up being the go-to light for my coat pocket in the winter. They are very bright and all things considered I decided to keep and use them.
Now, to add to the above, because you can never have too many bright flashlights, I bought this 3-pack of flashlights at Costco today for only $16. Each one holds four AAA batteries and seems as bright as the sun. They are a little bigger than my current pocket flashlights but still fit and if they break, so what? I'm out $5?. So I'm good with all that.
All this got solved cheaper than I thought possible. Thanks to everyone. I can see clearly now.
Here's the new Costco flashlights. By the way, no dim-bright-flashing lights. These are bright-dim and no flash.
...) and permits to work hands free (Big bonus). As it is head mounted, the light stays beemed where it is most needed, and this is in front of your eyes.
