I'm (arguably) an international expert in this area. (Really, maybe :-)).
One reason there are so many drivers is that applications vary widely and, also, the market is large and potentially lucrative. The answer will vary based on many parameters. I'll list a few, and if you can refine the question I and others can refine the answer.
What country you are in can influence the answer - you may wish to comment to others where you are based.
Mains powered, battery powered, solar powered, other ... - some mix ...?
Maximum power level, minimum power level, ...
How important is efficiency to you? This may vary depending on whether products are mains or battery powered.
How cost sensitive are your products? What market sectors are you selling in?
How important is product quality, longevity of LED, longevity of product.
Patents are important in the LED area and less so in the IC area. LED patents are a major battle-field with lots of money being spent on extensive litigation. BUT, generally patents are irrelevant to you from an application point of view. Buy IC's and LEDs that either do not have patent issues or for which any possible risk is guaranteed by the manufacturer. LEDs that do not have extensive patent cover are almost certainly not worth buying.
Are you building whole lamps or integrating electronics into other people's housings or ?
What volumes do you envisage? Are your markets domestic (own country) or international?
Obviously some of these questions may not be ones you want to answer openly in public. Some may seem irrelevant to the question - but think all are relevant. How much so will vary in some cases depending on other factors.
According to the datasheet for your LED driver, it has a 3 LED minimum load. The 10-43V rating of the driver equates to 3-12 LEDs wired in series. Driving a single LED will probably cause it to lose regulation with the smoky result you witnessed.
Get two more LEDs (3, preferably - I wouldn't re-use one that had produced smoke) and the driver should work well for you.
Best Answer
Yet another simple LED driver request and yet another application for the LM317 as constant current source to be a simple (if somewhat inefficient) LED driver, but, being in current source mode, at least a good one for LEDs.
simulate this circuit – Schematic created using CircuitLab
You can get brave and figure a value for the resistor, or you can sneak up on it with adding resistors in parallel as shown at an early stage, given you have sketchy parts.
1.25 volts is maintained between Adj and Out (the principle of the LM317's operation) - so each 10 ohm in parallel will add 125mA to the output in this configuration; or if you think the thing should take 900 ma, you could put together some combination that would get you close to 1.38 Ohms. Note that you'll burn over a watt in that resistor as well as the dissipation in the LM317 itself (which is best regarded as a "smart resistor" at least for power use.) Other driver toplogies can be more efficient - this one is mostly simple, and involves just a few components.
As commented above "2-3A at 12V" would be 24-36 watts. 10 watts at 12V would be 833 mA, 10 watts at 9V would be 1111 mA. It is important to note that LEDs are primarily current driven devices - that is, the current, and especially the maximum current, is what you need to control.