Personally, after using a quality 15x for a few years neither I nor my main hunting partner can go back to anything less for hunting deer/elk or other bigger critters. I keep a few pairs of 10x and a Swaro 8.5x42 around for trapping, bird hunting, chasing hounds and sometimes calling coyotes, but that is about it. They’re (15x) the only glass I usually take and only find them limiting when out of breath or glassing off the back of a horse that won’t stop eating. Using them I have found also packing a spotter is unnecessary in most (though not all) situations I find myself in. Specific legal criteria such as being full curl, 3 brow tines, etc. are an exception to that. If Swaro made a 15x in the NL Pure I’d be all over trying them. I have considered their 12x but haven’t done it yet.
$800 doesn’t give me the warm and fuzzy though I haven’t tried everything that the OP asked about. Amount of use and the conditions would have a bearing on my decision, I guess. I have never hunted coues so maybe that also has a bearing on what I use and prefer.
