Well, my winner is...the Monarch M5! I kept coming back to it. I tried the Vortex Diamondback HD, but the body and focus wheel were just too stiff to move comfortably. I couldn't get a clear view with the Opticron without getting tunnel vision. The Celestron DX ED felt like it was going to fall apart any minute, although the optics were pretty decent. The P7 was nice, but the M5 came out ahead. M7 was very nice, but I couldn't justify the extra $200 over the M5 (which was $258). The Cornell Bin Review article was very helpful and, also, contained a link to an extremely helpful article on how to test drive binoculars. I put the M5 through its paces, and was able to easily focus at distance and then close and at distance again, get a clean single image that was good to the edges, etc. Also, the close range distance was far shorter than advertised, which is a great advantage closer to 6 feet than the advertised 8 feet). Comparing the M5 with its comparatively narrow FOV vs the M7 with its massive FOV led me to conclude that the M5 was certainly adequate.
So, how are you doing?!