“or are they made by those companies that apparently hold the patent and then sold to the flashlight makers?”

I believe this is correct. I don’t know if China has copied the Cree LED yet.

“So our Luxeon flashlight today will be supersceded by those latter two tomorrow?”

Even though Luxeon is improving output, today it looks like Cree still puts out more light (than Luxeon). My feeling is every 6 months we will have brighter lights at the same power input; i.e, better efficiency. That Seoul P4 looks like the brightest now. However, I can’t predict who will be brightest in 6 months. But I think you’re getting the picture on how the LED world is changing.

“I saw that these Cree lights have aluminum housings since, unlike my G-4-base LEDs on the boat, they said they do get hot and the housing acts as a heat sink. You have any thoughts or experiences on that?”

Your G-4 base LEDS on the boat probably can’t handle more than 300mA/LED. They probably have a little bit of heat sinking built into a pcb and the G-4 base housing itself. These new Cree lights can handle 1A/LED. And since current goes up, power goes up. So you will need more heatsinking. If the Cree gets too hot, they will change color on you and their life will be shortened.

“BarryP, on another thread you mentioned that Cree P4 lantern. Do either of you have one? Any opinions? For $14, I can give it double duty camping and as a backup anchor light if it's decent quality.”

No I don’t have one. It looks neat. The reviewer said he didn’t like the lighting artifacts.

Based on the Cree P4 LED flashlight I have (from dealextreme) and a Fenix L1D, I would take the Fenix backpacking because I know it will always hold up. The Fenix has a much better build quality (glass lens, hard anodized black housing, nice push button switch).

Welcome to the addictive LED world.

-Barry