I am going to apologize to JB and claim azzhat status today. I know that my responses have been bitter and vitriolic. I freely admit that mid-tier glass is very good. It is much better than what people believe and I still see people come in buy a pair of poroprism nikons or even tascos and be done with it. The mid tier companies are pushing the alphas. Vortex is the biggest optics company in the world. Many of those people with wrecked vortex binoculars treat them terribly where those who buy a top tier pair of Zeiss or Leicas baby them. I will end my line of conversation in this thread with this. Every pair of mid tier binoculars has spiff incentives for the sellers of the binoculars to get either money or credit towards those binoculars that they sell. Mavens and Tracts don't follow this model and I don't know if GPO(which I would love to look through does) but the others are pushed by sellers in the optics department. The markup on mid tiers is mostly 45%-50%. Mark up on the top line of Alphas is 15% at the most. Many are just 10% above cost. covers, harnesses, adapters and other things are marked up. It just sticks in my craw that people will start with Crossfires, move up to Dimondbacks then buy a pair of Nikon Monarch 7s then buy a pair of Razors to get the optics that they really want when they could of bought a pair of alphas in the first place. This happens in Spotters more than binoculars but I see it in both lines of gear. Again, if I was a jerk I apologize. Its not very Christmasy.
