The Kahles binoculars actually improved after they started having them made in Japan a few years ago, but they price-point still didn't quite compete.
Maybe you looked through a bad example.
I've had both the Kahles 8x30s and 8x42s as well as Swaros, Zeiss, and Leica and the Kahles will run with any of them and the 8x42s I had were noticeably better than my Swaro SLCs. I am speaking of the Austrian glass, not the recent Japanese stuff.