First, apologies for posting to a 10 year thread, but can't resist as I just did this. And a disclaimer, if you don't sufficiently isolate the the posts when you re-route, you risk shorting the battery and whatever bad things might happen as a result . . .
That said, I just solved this problem with a cheap Energizer lamp. The switch/light/contact housing was a separate part that had a u-shaped contact plate to allow the battery to be installed in any orientation while still having contact with the positive spring.
Solution required 3 small screws, electrical tape, a coping saw and a small flat piece of plastic. If your light doesn't have similar contact strip that could be modified, you would have to source some sort of conducting material to re-do the connection
In a nutshell, I cut the u-shaped contact, using 1/4 of it to create a path from positive to the center post, then put a layer of electrical tape and then a piece of stout plastic over the center contact(so it won't short to the negative post). I then took the other 3/4 of the u-shaped contact, reversed it and attached it such that it made contact with the switch contact and the center post location. Other than the risk of a short, the major negative is that the battery can no longer be installed in any rotation. Positive must be located in 1 specific corner.
This was a fairly ridiculous waste of time, but for anyone obsessed with reusing/recycling, it's a pretty simple mod.
