I agree. I live way out in the country which makes things a little more difficult though. I bought my 8x32 SV EL's from Camerland when Swarovski had their anniversary sale promotion. A real hassle sending them back; however, I don't think there is anything wrong with them.
Yesterday, I compared a friend's Swaro 10x42 Range, my 8x32 SV EL and Zeiss 10x42 HT together. The Zeiss is sharper by a noticeable amount and the two Swarovskis are about equal. I prefer the colour of the Swarovski bins over the Zeiss which has a slightly washed out look in bright light. The Zeiss is terrific when the light is fading though and this is why I bought them for deer hunting. Actually, I bought both primarily for that purpose with the idea that the smaller pair would accompany me on longer backpacking excursions.
I expected a little more from the 8x32 SV EL as people do tend to rate them very highly in sharpness. Maybe, my Zeiss HT's are just exceptional in that regard.
The observation that Zeiss roofs show a slightly washed out view in bright light is common to the FL, HT and I recently read one such comment about that in the new SF. It's mainly due to the way Zeiss biases its AR coatings, because during daylight, your pupils will shrink to the same size no matter which bin you're looking through.
When you look at Zeiss's "light curve" graphed, it looks like a one-hump camel with the "hump" in the middle of the spectrum (green-yellow). Since our eyes are naturally sensitive to that part of the spectrum, it's
as if your entrance pupils opened wider during daylight. Like the washed out view you see after the eye doctor puts pupil dilator drops in your eyes. But as you mention, that bump in the middle of the spectrum comes in handy in low light situations. Zeiss roofs would be useful for the dog days of winter.
As to "sharpness," Zeiss claims they optimize the sharpness in the centerfield by sacrificing the sharpness at the edges. Or at least they did until they made the SFs, which have field flatteners. It will be interesting to see when the SF is compared to the HT and HD in terms of centerfield sharpness if it holds up against the other two. That is, can you have your "cake" and eat it, too?
Since you compared the 8x32 to the 10x42 Range, and found the Zeiss still sharper than both of them, there's apparently nothing subpar about your SV EL's optics.
Too bad you live so far away from optics stores (me, too), otherwise, you could compare your SV EL with an 8x32 UV HD and an 8x32 EDG, both of which have "warmer" images than the Zeiss. Whether or not they appear as sharp is in the eye of the beholder.
Brock