I think that insulting someone for buying expensive optics is just as dumb as looking down on someone who can't afford to buy the nicer stuff.
It's a truism that in Optics you have to pay a lot more to get a little better so there certainly is a diminishing point of returns. That doesn't however mean that some of the more expensive stuff doesn't perform a little better.
I've been fortunate enough to be able to aquire a few of the really nice optics. I've not been able to take a couple shots when using cheaper scopes that I think I could have made if I'd had better optics on the gun so I tend to hunt with the gun with the best scope on it. I tend to plan for the worst case and then am well equiped for normal use. But you can just as well make the point that why pay twice as much for 99% than for something that will work 95% of the time.
In the end I guess we talk about the "pea" because this is our hobby and we love this stuff. Most of us can only hunt a couple months out of the year, the rest of the time is just pea's............................DJ
