Pleased to make your acquaintance as well Dave. I'd say you're more on top of the technical aspects of scopes than I, and what you say makes good sense. I've only shot with Swarovski, Zeiss, and Leupold scopes for the past several years and have been pleased with all of them, but I can understand that if a manufacturer doesn't do a complete job in its design and production it could be a problem. And your comments about requiring higher mounts are right on.
I do have a comment on "light gathering" optics... and of course you are correct in saying that a scope cannot literally gather light. And again, I am no expert, but the way I have perceived it... and been amazed by... is that what these optics do is effectively give you an image that is consistent with the light around your target. For instance, and I know my terminology is off but bear with me here... Let's say that 10 lumens is a measure of sunlight on a bright day and 1 lumen is just this side of pitch black... If at the end of the day you are in a woodline and can see with about 3 lumens in your immediate vicinity and you can tell that in the adjacent field there is probably 4 lumens, but 100 yards away the field looks like 1 lumen from where you're at. What a good scope or binocular does is bring that image in to you at 4 lumens, or whatever the light quality is in the area you are glassing. Likewise, if you were standing in the field and glassing into the woods, you would see the image at about 3 lumens. Whatever the light quality is around your target, that's what you're seeing. So the scope brings you right up there. Doesn't add anything, though it seems like it in comparison to the naked eye. Does that make sense?