I've noticed a couple of things about the "This brand is best, all others suck" mentality, and I'm sure this'll cause some emotional reactions, probably because it's true. Surprisingly this has nothing to do with the specific brand at all, and could happen with any brand of products that carries a high price.

Allow me to propose a theory based soundly on behavioral psychology.

Person Type #1: The people who tout (high priced brand) over all others for some reason want to get what they consider to be the best quality available despite the "outrageous" prices. False justification for the purchase usually occurs and they buy it "just because". This doesn't sit well with the ego, especially after the purchase. They don't want to admit that any kind of mistake could have occurred or that they paid too much, since this would be a terrible blow to the ego. As a result they feel the need to justify their overspending by publicly decrying the use of other products and mentioning nothing but (high priced brand) in their public discourse. This is often accompanied by blindly defending (high priced brand) against what they consider to be the "attacks" of others who question the quality, construction, and prices despite obvious shortcomings in the product that are exposed by others. In defending (high priced brand), they're actually defending themselves and their weak justification for the purchase.

They are trying to defend their purchase and justify the very large amount of money they are spending by "recruiting" others who can make them feel better about themselves. When their new "recruits" say "wow, you're right, (high priced brand) is great", they now feel a little better about their (high priced brand) purchases because they are getting external reinforcement for what they know was probably excessively large expenditures which are hard to justify.

Some folks call this "brand name loyalty". Believe it or not, this is very "cult-like" behavior. Defending and preaching about something to justify and reinforce its acceptability in the mind of those who have become "members". I studied this type of behavioral motivation in college (wayyyy back when...) and it fits like a glove, although, of course, here it doesn't reach the proportions you see in a true "cult". Beware of those who tell you one thing is best to the exclusion of all others. They may be desperately trying to justify to themselves their own involvement by recruiting you.

Person Type #2: Then there are those who say (high priced brand) sucks no matter what. These are the folks who want to be able to justify the expense but cannot, or those who simply cannot afford it. They feel that they are missing something and this is a blow to the ego. Convincing others that they SHOULDN'T buy (high priced brand) makes them feel better and justifies in their mind the fact that they aren't buying (high priced brand). In essence these folks are recruiting you into their "will never buy it" cult in order to make them feel better about their non-purchase.

Person Type #3: Finally there are the folks who own and use (high priced brand), but don't feel the need to defend the product or recruit others. These folks are comfortable with their purchase, and usually bought them to fill a specific reason or to fill well-justified purpose. Other brands were investigated and this one was found to suit the purpose best. In their mind they do not need to defend their purchase by recruiting others to help make them feel good. The expense is already justified. They often have the most reasonable point of view about what to purchase and give the best advice.

I put it to you: If those expensive high quality lights, without changing the quality or anything about them, only cost $1 each, do you think all this "buy this not that, mine's better than all the rest" would be going on?

Nope. Because it would be easy to justify the expense in everyone's mind and there would be no need to defend the purchase in one's own mind. Suddenly those who want them could buy them without any mental legerdemain and those who didn't want them wouldn't buy them because of the features, not the price.

The Moral of the Story: Beware of people who tell you "You have to buy this one, all the rest are junk." Beware also of those people who tell you "Don't buy this one, they're junk compared to everything else." Advice of this type is worth exactly what you paid for it: nothing. The key words to listen for when asking for advice are things like: "Well, depending on your needs...", "It suits my purpose, but it may not suit yours...", etc. This is usually a good indicator that the person is unbiased about the product and doesn't feel the need to recruit others into a "Buy/Don't Buy" product "cult".