Which MACs are we taking about here? If it's the original MAC250s - I'd take the Intimidator over an original or + version in a heartbeat. If it's entours/kryptons, it'd be a close
call. Also, a lot of people will be looking for a more complete rental package, not just movers, and especially not just narrow-angle, low-feature movers (which all the movers we're discussing here are). Most theater groups that rent movers from the company I work for, which is a fairly well known regional rental & production
house, want mid-range movers with
zoom and probably color mixing. We
send out packs of 2 or 4 MAC700s all the time for those kinds of groups. For the people who rent our 250
watt fixtures - the couldn't care less what the
fixture is. We're still renting out old Studio Spot 250s that go bad with startling frequency, though mostly in the shop for some reason - I guess they just like our clients better than me. If we got some LED-source
fixture from Chauvet, Elation, &c., our clients wouldn't really care as long as they work, have half decent gobos (which the Intimidator 350s do), and we have the personalities in our consoles for them. Most of the time it's either a middle school or high school renting a few movers for their school
play or musical, or it's someone lighting a
dance floor.
I don't think it's at all worth it to buy anything under 700 watts that takes an arc lamp these days. There are too many good
LED fixtures out there. We've had great reliability with Chauvet units, we sell & install lots of them. They've really come a long way on the reliability side of things. Significantly superior to Elation in my experiences of the past 2 or so years.