I'm a fashion shooter and for the past few years have been in search for the "perfect" portable monolight for location strobe/daylight shooting. I found about 6 or 7 years ago, I had a model who just couldn't keep her eyes open when shooting on the beach with reflectors. I finally pulled out a Canon Speedlite, never having really used it extensively, and shot at 1/1000 of a second with the strobe as "reflector". Miracle! She could open her eyes. (Many years before, I had used my Hasselblad 500ELM with a Norman 200B and 400C for similar reasons. I was ignorant about the advances in Speedlites and HSS until the above example.) Since then I've been on the hunt for better/more powerful/faster recycling monolight-type strobes. (I still have a couple of Canon 600EX-RT speedlites, but need heavy-duty, non-enclosed flash tubes. I also tried a Quantum, but found it less capable and powerful than the Canons.)
I own Einsteins with the Vagabond, but with the pocket wizards, I can only realistically get the sync up to about 1/400 without cut-off (shooting low power for faster recycle). I then bought about a year and a half ago the then-new Phottix Indra 500. It was... OK. Not super fast recycle times and you can ONLY use it with HSS on E-TTL, not manual. I shoot both ways, but the Phottix only shooting high-speed sync is limiting if only TTL. About year ago, I excitedly purchased the Priolite Hot Sync MBX500. Similarly to Elinchrom, it uses long duration strobe, relying upon the camera's shutter to freeze and balance the light. I have mixed feelings. Sometimes it works very well (such as a shoot I did in the Everglades about a month ago), and other times not as well. My main reservation is that the max recycle, no matter the power level, is about 2+ frames per second. Pretty slow for my style of shooting. I've had to modify how I shoot to utilize it. The other two factors are that, 1) it weighs about 10 lbs (my assistant walks around with a monopod holding it, or a light stand), and 2) I had a couple times when it crapped out on me shooting in the sun for extended periods. Obviously over-heated. Not something I'd expect from an open flash tube, but have seen with Speedlites.
Which brings me to Elinchrom. I'm tempted to buy it, but I just can't blow another large sum on yet another light that may or may not work for me. I can't find anyone who rents them. (Too bad no demos from Elinchrom.) The Indra was a tad over $1k, and the Priolite, with extra battery etc. was about $2k.
Does anyone have first-hand experience? Not what you've heard or read, but truly used in hand. Please don't suggest the Profoto B2. I rented it. Actually two units. They both malfunctioned and I feel they are overpriced, as most Profoto gear is. Thanks for the help.