Eitan,
I think I may have been misintrepreted. I am not downplaying any of the results that Arek posted. He ran some extreme tests and posted his findings.
I think Arek deserves our thanks.
His tests, which are by no means 'extreme', reflect industry standards and should be readily met by a good quality binocular.
Real stress is the kind of tests inflicted on military binoculars, such as the old Zeiss Jena 7x40 EDF, which according to Holger Merlitz was randomly subjected to:
"5 cycles of temperature changes from -50 deg. Celsius to +60 deg., at 2 hours per cycle, they were sprayed with 27 deg. sea water for 168 hours, were dropped from 75 cm, were exposed to accelerations of 15g at 5-10 ms duration and accelerations of 120g at 1-5 ms duration, kept in 1 meter deep cold water for 1 hour"
Holger, who drew on the research done by Guido Thuernagel in his very informative German language blog
http://www.yasni.de/ext.php?url=htt...tm&name=Guido+Thürnagel&cat=profile&showads=1
does not mention that the water was deliberately held at least 15 degrees C below the temperature of the glass, to help create suction from within the glass, or that the glass also had to stand up to 2 hours of 80 degrees C exposure to ensure the lubricants did not leak out.
In this context, Arek's tests are gentle and his concerns quite well justified.
I recognize that there is a lot of variability to binoculars and his tests were clearly aimed at allowing most glasses to pass comfortably.
He expressed his own surprise at the poor showing of the two Leica models he received.
At a minimum, his tests show that some manufacturers today may have lost the bubble on quality, they may have superb 6 sigma processes, but they produce only marginally good product reliably. Leica in particular has had a very rough time financially in recent years, so they would have been especially vulnerable to the siren song of less waste through higher precision, although that argument gladdens the hearts of accountants everywhere.