Thanks, Tobias, for a very nice review and a good read.
You manage to bring together enthusiasm and comprehensive objectivity nicely, which is all too uncommon in reviews.
Your impressions on the 8.5x SV are very much a match with mine when I had one recent sample on loan earlier this winter to use as a comparison for the 8x SF. Since my memories are still fresh (and I have notes, of course), I'll comment on a couple of points.
I do think the color balance of the SV is tiny bit on the cool, blue-emphasized side. Not that it matters much or would be a problem. In comparisons with the SF (which looked a bit greenish-yellow) the difference was quite obvious as the slight biases of these are towards opposite sides of neutral. In between (thus a bit closer to neutral) was my 10x42 Canon.
It had been quite a while since I had reviewed the SV's, so I was expecting more pronounced rolling ball effects in its view, but like you, what I saw was quite minimal and did not disturb me. The SF had much more, but it does have a wider subjective field of view of course. That would also be a difference to the 8x32 SV, and may explain part of the differences in RB and distortion behavior. I was looking at angular magnification distortion behavior towards the field edges with various square, rectangular or round objects, assessing their change of shape as they would be panned towards or from the field edge, and judged that this happened much less with the SV than with the SF. The Canon is pretty similar to the 8.5x SV in this regard, so it is possible that as I'm used to the Canon view it helps me with the SV view. Nevertheless, I also thought that what I saw did not correspond with my memories (or, indeed, with what I wrote about in my review) of the 8.5x42 SV.
Fortunately, the shop here still has the original demo sample of the SV, so I could compare the new and the early models directly. To my surprise, in an admittedly short back-and-forth session outside the store, I couldn't see any reliably clear differences. If there were any, they were too slight to repeatably notice, and then one would also have to consider sample variation possibilities.
I can also support your statements about contrast transfer and sharpness, as they really were quite outstanding. I have never seen blacker blacks in a binocular image than with this SV. It also did very well on both naked eye and boosted resolution tests.
The one part where I differ a bit with your assessments is the comparison with 8x42 SLC. I did not directly compare the two now, but when I have tested the SLC, I have had samples that resolution-wise equaled this SV and also had superb contrast, although with a slightly warmer color balance the contrast would look different subjectively. So I'd dare guess that as you have seen a clear difference between the two in sharpness, the SLC sample you had might not have been quite the luckiest draw from the deck.
Kimmo