Whether it is the best ED glass or an economy type is another question, and maybe glass makers have been trying to bring the cost of ED glass down and have succeeded.
Hi,
yes, there is quite some competition for the top dogs Schott and Ohara. Also there is not really best, good and budget ED glass. There is different kinds and they need to be used in combination with different (non-ED) partner glasses.
In an ideal world, the designer is able (and allowed by the beancounters) to choose a glass combination which allows him to reach the specifications without using a very critical design with stuff like strong curves or large airspace...
That being said, binoculars with their low magnifications are a fairly easy task to get reasonably color free... as is shown by a lot of classics without ED glass which still work without showing offensive amounts of color for most users.
So probably the most expensive stuff like FPL-53 or 55, FCD-100 or OK4 is not going into binoculars but high price astro APOs.
Joachim