I suspect fixed scopes have not been more popular because the average joe has been assuming for years that variable scopes maintain their mechanical integrity just fine. It's a reasonable assumption and I was in that boat until a few years back. I chalked up my misses to shooter error or whatever, and never really demanded absolute precision out of my scopes. I just never realized how poorly some of my variable scopes had been performing.
That all changed a few years back when on a whim I started to rotate my scopes onto some superbly accurate Anschutz rifles I have and then the results were like cold water in my face. To my disappointment I started to see that many of my variables were changing point of impact when I changed magnification. Also many of my variables were not dialing accurately.
I did a lot of box tests, ladder tests, and POI tests and I keep the results in three ring binders. Have tested many different brands and models borrowed from friends and you ought to see how violated one guy looked when we found his Vortex 2-7x35 Diamondback rimfire model shifted POI a full 2 1/2 inches at 50 meters when changing from 2x to 7x.
Don't think I'm singling out Vortex. I've documented troubling failures in most popular brands of variable scopes along with good results on other individuals. The bottom line for me is I can't trust a variable to be precise until I have proven it to be so, and then I'm not sure if it will stay that way.
I've mostly converted to fixed scopes. I tend to go mostly Leupold for the set and forget it type, and I've been having good luck with the super chickens if I want a dialer. Am getting more convinced that less is more on this subject matter. fwiw...
