The flashing beacon is one of the stupidest hangers-on of obsolete aircraft equipment, right up there with starter motors driven by compressed air. It sits there consuming more than ten amps, even though it's illuminated only half of the time. And it isn't even visible during daylight.
The flashing beacon, and it's even stupider cousin the rotating beacon, were adopted back when strobes were impractical for collision avoidance, and have hung on for the same reason as magnetos, fixed ignition timing, and carburetors: Irrational conservatism which defeats its own goals, reducing safety and utility. Strobes are much more effective, especially in daylight.
(Rotating beacons still are used on many aircraft. They actually rotate the bulb and reflector with a little geared electrical motor. The motor and the bulb's brushes are sources of electrical noise, and when you turn the silly thing on before engine start, it makes your aircraft sound like it was built by a gang of Oompa-Loompas. And they're heavy.)
Many of us were taught to turn on the beacon on the ground to warn bystanders of an impending engine start. Yeah, right! Like somebody on the ramp will see a weak red light, slowly flashing three feet above his line of sight. Three-point strobes would be more effective.
I have long advocated leaving strobes turned on at all times, even while taxiing and while tied down. Believe me, you won't walk away from an airplane with the master switch left on, if the strobe switch is on, too! If you find yourself in a position where your strobes may annoy another pilot on the ground or on final, turn them off for a few minutes.
At a minimum, the beacon on the rudder cap should be replaced with a strobe. Whelen says its HR-CFA uses 3.2 amps and is PMAd as a direct replacement for any rotating beacon. (I haven't tried it. It is 7.25 inches tall, about half above and half below the mounting surface, and 1.5 pounds. Perhaps its size or weight would prevent installing it on a Grumman rudder cap.) It has a self-contained multiple-flash power supply. Wag-Aero sells it for under $300. If you can't afford that, Wag-Aero offers a less expensive one for $120.
An even better choice is to install a tail strobe, which Whelen says may legally replace the flashing beacon. The Whelen A500A is a direct replacement for the standard tail position light, adding a strobe to the assembly. Together with an A490-T-CF power supply, it costs around $310 from Aircraft Spruce & Specialty. The weight of the strobe/nav light assembly is .3 pounds. The power supply is 1.2 pounds, so it can be mounted in the tail in place of the beacon's load resistor. It draws only 1.7 amps.
The orange airplane doesn't have wingtip strobes, so I would like to add them, replacing the flashing beacon with the combined tail nav light and strobe. I would drive all three strobes with a Whelen A-413A-HDA-CF power supply mounted under the pilot's seat. For only 7 amps and 2.7 pounds, I'll eliminate the flashing beacon and add three-point strobes. Prices from Aircraft Spruce: A625 wingtip strobes, $69 each; power supply, $275; tail nav light/strobe, $109; total, about $525, not including wire and installation. And it's a fun project.
Now, 7 amps is still a lot, and I would turn them off if the alternator failed. But 7 amps for highly visible (even in daylight) collision avoidance is far better than 11 amps for a weakling flashing beacon.