I agreed with your observations and bought my first conquest 6 years ago.I know have conquests on my main hunting rigs where leupolds use to live. Leupold sort offorced me to look when they stopped using 1 piece tubes (In the VXIII). Zeiss won in optics and functions like constant eye relief, etched reticle, etconly helped the sell. They have passed every test I could throw at them in the field with flying colours and not one hintof troubles to report. I have them mounted on: 2506rem, 7mm rem mag, 338wm and 50 cal ML.

Like mentioned both are quality scopes, I just think the conquest represents better return on investment.