Depends entirely on what you are trying to do. For some purposes to which people put binoculars, an occasional momentarily stable glimpse at high mag between bouts of shaking is what is needed. By contrast, for most types of birding, a steady view with maximum field of view and depth of field is much more valuable. A 16x bin provides an image only twice the size of an 8x but gives up a lot in FOV and DOF. I find magnification highly overrated for birding bins, so I always use 7, 8, or 8.5x bins. I can hold 10x steady but the magnification gain (20%) is a trivial benefit versus the reduced FOV and DOF. For most birding, it's more about how quickly one can get on the bird (i.e. acquire it in FOV with sharp focus), not specifics of magnification. If I need magnification for distant birds, I use a scope at 30x (and sometimes higher magnifications, but 30x allows most birds to be identified).
--AP