I'll say it again, failing under 10 dives is a problem, regardless of the manufacturer and then the company being dismissive about it makes it worse. Things can fail, yes (you're going to earn the title of Captain obvious here if you keep saying it) you do orings once a year I do similar but sometimes will just change them out beforehand too, especially if we're going in a trip so I usually change orings two times a year on equipment requiring them, a few dollars is meaningless to me in the face of saving thousands.
I'll round out again saying it's not typical for something to fail so soon and then a company be entirely dismissive of it, terrible customer support is what drives customers away faster than garbage products.
@icouldcarelessbutdont
Here's the the reality... Backscatter is one of top 2-3 underwater photography retailers in the US (Bluewater Photo, Reef, and Backscatter). They are somewhat unique in that they don't just retail U/W equipment, they've expanded into manufacturing their own strobe & lighting solutions with some fairly innovative products (the miniflash & snoot and now the MF-1).
Their service around the miniflash drew praise from many (many) divers who ran into issues with the initial release of that product.
You continue to complain about their service - that doesn't ring true for many of us who have purchased from Backscatter for years -their service is high quality, often willing to go way beyond what's required to get a customer what they need to continue shooting on a trip.
As for choosing Kraken as a replacement. You are moving from what many see as one of the most powerful strobes on the market (HF-1) to a middle of the road, underpowered strobe - that might be great for you (you've never said what kind of camera you are shooting with, nor if you are focused on wide-angle or macro, or trying to shoot both with your strobes), but to most, this looks like an odd decision. If you wanted an equivalent strobe, look at the Retras - much better quality, great reputation, and excellent quality of light.
You had a bad experience - we get it. There are quite a number of us that have had very positive experiences with the HF-1. It was one of the first strobes to be designed with a sealed battery compartment so if flooded, you have a chance to resurrect the strobe by drying and cleaning up the battery compartment and replacing the batteries. As someone has already mentioned - this has the potential to save a dive trip (vs. older strobes that once flooded are "done"...)
As for your battery comment... yes, using AA batteries (NiMH or alkaline) are much easier to source. However, the watt-hours available from the 18650 Li-Ion battery is significantly greater, which is in part why the HF-1 is signficantly more powerful. Only with the newest Retras can you can get close to this light output with AA sized batteries (with a reasonable recycle time).
Stated bluntly - you seem to have some very strong opinions but not a lot of experience.
