Hmm... What a difference a day makes... I will still be returning them, I can't deal with the balance, they are VERY, VERY front heavy! The focuser however is a lot better, I worked it in for a little while and it is much less spongy/rubbery feeling and the backlash is much less now. The focuser still feels a little cheap however, but is not as bad as I thought. I must have just been tired as the eye strain is not there anymore while using these, they are collimated perfectly.
Alright let's talk about CA... There is none. Absolutely none. I tried and tried and tried, but I could not find any CA at all. To clarify, my example of the Theron Wapiti APO-ED 8x42 do not have any CA in the overwhelming majority of the FOV. I could barely, barely detect some at the extreme edge... Barely!
Optical quality... There was/is a weird film on the oculars, I think it is some type of grease coming from the ocular ring. I cleaned it off, but if I clean too close to the edge, I can pull more out. Both the oculars and the objectives had minute particles on them, both needed to be cleaned. The prisms and internal lenses/flatteners have dust particles on them, these are definitely not made in any type of clean environment.
Coatings... They must have an anti-fog coating (on both the objectives and the oculars), and it works very well, they de-fog/un-fog very quickly!
There is also noticeable internal reflection. Both exit pupils are truncated, the right is slight, the left slightly more. They would have been better using slightly bigger prisms, as this would have put some of the weight toward the rear, balancing them a little better.
The FOV is very nice for an 8x42, even up the the edge it is very sharp, and any blurriness can be focused out. There is not much change in focus from the center to the edge.
I will try to do some star testing over this weekend. If anyone has any questions, make sure you ask me in the next few days as I will be sending them back on monday.