Help picking a headlamp

[Hank6046]

I do SAR in southern AZ, but there's quite varied terrain, given some of the mountains we have, so we cover desert scrub, semi-desert grasslands, and forests; we will always be carrying rescue packs that typically weight at least 30 lb, and can often be substantially more. For recreation, I've also hiked quite a bit in the mountains of CO, CA, and WA; I am a huge believer in poles, and am also often carrying a ruck that is often close to half my body weigh, so the poles help with that, particularly in elevation changes; I also find myself carrying much lighter daypacks in rougher terrains, often in the scree and boulderfields above the treeline, or in post-hole filled snowfields or on the glacier. In all these situations, having free hands is very important to me. Having multiple angles of light to get different perspectives is certainly something that is quite important in SAR, but the need to be hands free in order to safely navigate, particularly off-trail, is even more important.

The issue of blinding people with lights is simply being cognizant of where you're pointing the light; an important skill to learn in many roles, particularly those where helmet mounted lights are the norm (firefighting, caving, etc.).

On the issue of peripheral vision, we get around that by simply a combination of having a decent amount of spill in the headlamp (even better if you can have a headlamp that can output both a thrower and a flooder at the same time) and constantly scanning.

So I'll admit I'm learning something.
I'm somewhat familiar with South AZ as my mom and step dad where in Green Valley for the last 4 years, I've done a few hikes at Old Baldy/ Madera Canyon, just in the day time on trail.
I do not have experience off trail in Colorado or Washington although I did grow up in both places as a kid so I understand the terrain and why you'd want to keep your hands free.
I completely understand the need for a light pack even here in the woods as the snag factor is high off tail and there is often people who bring the whole back of their truck worth of supplies, I was only an EMR (MN rating for a person who could stabilize the patient) and the actual Sheriffs Department and County EMTs were there for the heavy lifting with that.
I still like having a flashlight over a head lamp in the woods and river trails near me. I'm not going over boulders, or need to navigate terrain with polls, I'm more worried about fallen logs, holes and the need to utilize the light in a way to better judge distance and height of obstacles or terrain, I tend to also like the ability to point out said obstacles. It seems like you are working with a team of individuals that train on certain SOPs, and because of the SOPs the headlamp is your main lighting source, I understand that. I'm not doing that, even when we had call outs for a Silver Alert at night we were doing sections of the woods in and around a Suburban area where I didn't need to utilize all of the tools you probably do. Now I'm mainly working with my buddies or kids to get to tree stands, or ground blinds, we more so have to stalk in for this for lack of a better term, this means we don't want the signature that you do.