I have had a couple of the elites, a 2.5x10x40 on a 7mm stw and a 6x24x40 on a 220 swift. I've also had a bunch of leupolds, too many to mention in Vari-XII and Vari-XIII configurations.

As several posters mentioned the elites tend to be heavier than the leupolds. That might be a factor on a hunting rifle, but a varmit gun like I was using the 6x24 on it didn't matter. The eye relief is also pretty short, but I really didn't like was the very critical eye positioning required to get a full sight picture. It seemed with the elites required much more critical eye placement than the leupolds, which are very forgiving of positioning. Again, not much of a problem on the varmit rifle but I didn't like it on the 7mm stw. Also the 2.5x10 elite had to be sent back when it was new because it wouldn't hold zero, bushnell tried to charge me $10 shipping to fix their scope that was defective from the factory, I've never had to send a leupold back. I personally couldn't tell any difference between the brightness and clarity of the Vari-XIII and the elites.

You didn't mention what you're putting the scope on. I'll say that if I were scoping a varmit rig I'd buy one of the elites again (or a weaver grand slam). For any of my big game rifles it'll only be leupolds from here on out, I just trust them more.

Pajack,
Did you confirm they even received the scope? I have a 7mm RUM with Elite 4200 4-16x50 and nothing's busted and I had a 3200 2.5x10x40 before with about 50 shots and it's fine. I'm sure you had a flaw from the factory and it finally broke. Bad luck and it was a fluke I'm sure.