With all that boring stuff behind, my opinion of the best scopes these days are the bushnell elite scopes. I am a hardcore ziess/leupold guy, and some say a scope snob. I was sceptical when everyone started clammering on these elites. But now I own 3 of em. For the money they can't be beat.

Its rare to get a good scope for under 100 dollars. It happens. Those cheaper scopes have a low yield, and QA is just not there. Quality assurance is expensive. If the cheaper companies tested each scope for quality and construction and picked out the best, you could get a fine scope. Problem is most are going to get what they paid for.