This has been interesting, especially about the binoculars.
Rifles -
Win M70 .30-06, 2.5x8 VX-III. Couldn't trade me out of this combo for anything.
Ruger 77 .257 Rob, 3.5x10 Vx-III. Prarie dogs, pigs, & deer, one combination that really does it all with light recoil.
Ruger 77 .338 Win Mag, 3x9 VX-II. Good enough to spotlight pigs at night, and that's plenty of a test for any optics.
Marlin 336, .35 Rem, 2x7 VX-II. Same comments as .338.
Mark X mauser, .458 Win Mag, 1.5x5 VX-III. Wouldn't give up the 5+ inches of eye relief if you held the gun to my head!
Used to have a 6.5x20 VX-III on a custom .22-250. Traded it for the 1.5x5 and some Warne rings & bases. Kinda fun to crank it up, but not the best in indoor ranges. Have an old steel-tube K-10 Weaver to put back on that gun. 40mm objective isn't really enough for 20x.
.22's - I used 4x and 6x Leupold scopes that have been sent back to the factory and adjusted to be parallax-free at 50 yards. Got tired of chasing zero around on cheap .22 scopes. Probably saved enough in ammo not re-sighting to pay for the scopes! They aren't too bad used, usually $100-$125 or a little more.
An extra 2.5x Leupold, and several 4x's, as spares.
Now you're gonna laugh.
With all the money I've spent on scopes, binoculars are an inexpensive pair of Bushness 8x compact, I think 26mm objectives. About $125 or so if I recall. And they have really proven themselves! Funny story, when I bought them the power went off in the gunstore briefly. During that time, I aimed several different brands back to the dark parts of the store, to check out the light transmission & picture. These were just great. I think that with cheaper stuff, sometimes you get a good one and sometimes not. The situation let me pick a good one.
Now they're NOT something that you'd want to use to glass all day. But so far they've been just fine for what I do, mostly stand hunting and low-light conditions at short ranges (pigs).
Good comments so far. I've learned a lot. My opinion for anyone looking to buy a new scope is that the Leupold's new low end line is tough to beat. 3x9 for $200 from several mail-order places, you just can't go wrong with that.