I am a longtime NTOA member and have served as a gear tester (though I haven't received anything in years). KUTF is absolutely correct in his post. Gear is sent out to several testers for evaluation. Evaluators put the equipment through whatever test protocol they wish. The NTOA-approved symbol means that at least one of the evaluators liked their gear. Let's face it, if you got it free, you'll probably like it, especially if you haven't put it to hard use.
The value of the program is to members who can access the Member-Tested Program at
www.ntoa.org and, to a lesser extent, those who read the Member-Tested section of the magazine. All of the evaluations are on the website and some are in the magazine. Evaluators generally explain what they did to test their products and how they worked. While this is far from a perfect system, it is probably more truthful than articles in the gun and LE magazines.
NTOA has forwarded me some free gear that was absolutely great and still serves me well. I also received some items that were absolute junk. Oddly enough, the only Surefire that ever failed me was a Member-Testing G2 that was defective out of the box...and which I paid to have shipped back for warranty work which defeated the whole free equipment concept.