I use a red dot on some hunting handguns, and on a Ruger MkIII .22LR for plinking. I think the chief advantages are kind of infintessimal eye relief and easy target acquisition. I like the 3 MOA dots for this purpose. which are fairly precise, but still short range propositions. My longest shot on a deer with a handgun was about 50 yards. I see our military now uses some pretty sophisticated looking electronic sights but I don't know much about them.
Compared to a typical riflescope though, you would sure give up a lot at the ranges which you generally use a rifle for. A decent scope is brighter, clearer, more precise, and increases your accuracy potential far more. If mounted correctly on your rifle and chosen correctly for your use, eye relief and parallax are not issues. If you like the advantages of the illuminated aiming point, you can get several riflescopes with dots or reticles that have various forms of illumination and even fractional MOA dots, so you get the "best of both worlds".
