I’m a welder by trade, and I often use flashlights to inspect my work. I’ve used a bunch of Maglite solitaires for a while, but I’m getting a little tired of how fast they gunk up or burn out. Turns out, welding work is ROUGH on flashlights, especially if you keep using them through grinding and polishing. What I’m looking for is a small, very durable flashlight. Preferably under 1" in diameter, between 3 and 5 inches long, and very durable with regards to heat and abrasive, conductive dust. Ideally, I’d like something usb-c rechargeable, but without some kind of dust flap for the port I don’t see how that’s possible. The other problem I tend to have with the maglites is that I end up melting the plastic cover over the bulb. That let’s in dust, burning out the element. The front cover would probably need to be something other than plastic. Replacing the solitaires isn’t the worst thing in the world, but it’s a pain in my ass to forget to buy more and end up burning out the last one when I need it. I don’t need anything particularly bright, just indestructible.
It looks like the AAA Solitaire goes up to 47 lumens, which is pretty easy to find in a similar size. I have used the acebeam pokelit AA (not 2xAA) which has been reviewed quite a bit and can be found on amazon in the US for under $20. It is sold with an included 14500 cell which also has a built-in usb-c charger. So you would need to unscrew the head (which has a glass lens I think not plastic) to charge the battery, preventing water or other ingress.
I’m not sure if it makes sense to invest in a very durable but more expensive light in the event it does end up broken, but if you want to, zebralight is well regarded for durability and you can get a single-AA model and use rechargeable Nimh cells if you would like: https://www.zebralight.com/SC53c-N-Neutral-White-High-CRI-AA-Flashlight_p_249.html. They also offer other models supporting lithium-ion.