Great article, MD.
In the late 90's through mid-2000s, I worked as a sales rep. I handled two of the 'alpha' glass companies - Leica and Swarovski. When I left that rep group, I kept my scopes. All of those scopes sold for $1000-$1500 or more. I recently did a side-by-side test of a 2000's era Leica and a Zeiss HD5 from 3 years ago. The Zeiss I picked up when they were starting to clear them out and paid around $700 for. The Leica's had a retail of $1300 or so. The Zeiss gave a sharper rendition of things I looked at. Birds, bricks on neighbors houses, leaves on a live oak etc. Color-wise, I could see little, if any difference. That evening, I went out in near-dark and looked again. The Zeiss again had a bit of an edge.
Glass has come a long way in a short amount of time. The low-end stuff we suffered with 20-30 years ago we wouldn't touch now in comparison to what we have available.
