This is soooooo true. A crap lens is such a PITA and not even worth it. There are good mid priced poly lenses out there as well as high end glass lenses as well, depends on what you can spend. I have a few now and have owned a lot more that I've sold now.

The very best lenses out thereare the true Zeiss lenses sold by Classic, or the Swarovski/Sure Loc Black Eaglelens. Both are about the same quality glass, but the Zeiss/Classis lens is MUCH cheaper. There are a lot of other lenses out there for sale with the name Zeiss on the them, this is simply because they are paying royalties to use one of the many differentZeiss patented coating processes on a regular old piece of glass or poly. There is a BIG difference between an actual Zeiss lens and an old Zeiss patent coating. To my knowledge the only real Zeiss lens available to the normal guy is the one sold by Classic, and there is a BIG difference between the actual Zeiss lenses and the Zeiss coated generic lenses.

The best mid range lenses in my opinion are Mag Sight, Feathervision, and DY Optics, theseare all good lensesfor the money. Keep in mind though, their standard lenses are a poly that is much softer than the good glass of a Zeiss/Classic or Swarovski/Sure Loc, and will definitely scratch much easier.

For scopes themselves, honestly most of them are good.I prefer to use CR Apex scopes just because there are some good accessories for them like sun shades, up/down/side pin options, and the LP Pro Lights fit them well.They are VERY reasonably priced as well.

I'm currenly using a 6x Mag Sight lens in a CR Apex Target (1 3/8") with a black ring for indoors and FITA. I change the black ring to a flo green .039 fiber razor up pin for field archery using the same lens and scope.

For 3D I'm also currently using the Zeiss/Classic lens in a CR Apex 3D scope (1 5/8"), along with a sun shade, green fiber up pin, and LP Pro Light to adjust pin brightness accordingly and help reinforce my shot timing with their auto timer feature for the light. If I trusted the batteries I'd use the blue fiber with the light, that thing shows up better without fuzzyness than any other color but is useless if the batteries die........a chance I'm not willing to take.

All of my scopes are currently being used on Axcel sights. I've got 2x of them now and they are definitely $$$ but in my opinion the slickest sight on the market.