I love my lights. Since I am stuck at home due to some medical/surgical issues, Sometimes I just handle and caress them, polish and the lube the O rings and threads. I used to only be indoors to eat & sleep and always on the go, outside the rest of the time. The bottom line is that as much as I like them, they are tools. Tools to be used and serve their intended purpose. The first time I drop or damage a brand new light, I cringe...and then think, oh well, now I don't have to care about it if it falls again. My Surefire's and Four Sevens have the highest mileage...many have hundreds of hours in aircraft from when I was a Chief Flight Nurse. Regardless of one scratch or a hundred, they are still well cared for. I recently discovered that Harbor Freight sells Apache Cases for less than $10. The container is larger than I need when transporting multiple lights, but it includes 4 sections of dark grey foam identical to the Pelican "Pick & Pluck". It fits in a cigar box quite well and in the case of my Four Sevens Preon lights can hold 18 lights. Or I could use the Apache case and have two levels of lights for a total of 36 lights...Cool.
None of my lights are "Safe queens", although some have that appearance just because they have not yet seen enough field time(yet). Life is indeed too short to freak out about beat up lights....