> The other day, I wanted a super bright flashlight that ran on AAA batteries and was of decent quality and price. I had to pour over the millions of listed flashlights, most looking physically identical, with the exception of the brand name printed on the flashlight itself. Then I read about how these flashlights are all mass produced by the same manufacturer and re-branded

You need a trusted third party to collate all of the information about a product category and then filter out all the crap. I have conveniently already done this for flashlights:

http://flashlights.parametrek.com/index.html

(Yes, I run it and yes it uses affiliate links.)

Also, AAA cells are terrible for flashlights. A single AAA cells is okay for a compact penlight but many use 3xAAA cells and 95% of the time 3xAAA lights have the worst engineering of any flashlight.