I've been running a ton of Vortex off and on for over 10yrs and have nothing at all negative to say out any of their products.
IMO they have great optics, I put a 5-15 HST on my 280AI over 8yrs ago, sighted it in to 1K and have not touched the sight since. That rifle has killed a dozen animals since building it and has been dragged around for hundreds of miles on the back of my pack and has been dropped more than once. Most of the hunting has been done by my wife and kids so it's all be 300yds and closer, decided to stretch it out for the cold bore challenge and was able to ring a 8" plate at 600 yards on day 2, day one I accidentally dialed backward with my windage otherwise it would have also been on target. I really don't know what else you can ask for out of a scope unless you are shooting steel at ELR for a living.
As far as other optics, I have 5 pairs of Viper HD binos in my crews work trucks, I have one in mine also 10yrs old, I have a set of Razor 10x42's, have a Viper HD 80mm scope and had a Razor 65mm scope, my son also has a pair of diamondbacks he won at an archery shoot. I have a Razor 4K range finder and a skyline and SS tripod as well. Out of all of these products, the only thing I've had to reach out to Vortex for is a neoprene case for the Razor and the adapter plates for the pan head on the tripod. Since the Skyline is no longer in production I couldn't find baseplates any longer, vortex sent me a handful for free.
I've had 3 range finders have electrical issues in the past 10yrs and none were vortex, I was offered a 40% discount from the other companies on an upgraded set. I decided I didn't want to keep replacing them so I opted to buy the Razor 4K, it has been the best range finder I've used and has great glass, functions perfectly and quickly and has a lifetime warranty on the electronics.
As far as quality compared to Alpha glass IMO anything under 10X they do just fine for hunting, my hunting partner has NL's and while they are obviously better they really offer no advantage in the field while hunting, the picture is much better but the Razor is good as well. The high end glass has great clarity all the way to the edge while the Razor is lacking on the last 10% or so on the outside of the view. This is comparing them to the best bino on the market, even when sharing the NL's I didn't feel and still don't feel like the Razors are leaving me wanting for more.
Now when it comes to spotters I think Alpha glass really stands out, the Razor is a great spotter for most people and served me great for a long time, during good glassing conditions it is awesome but during less than optimal conditions it falls off quickly.
I will say for the cost of a used Razor bino or Spotter they are very hard to beat. Optically they do a really good job for most hunting situations. IMO the Razor binos are a great size/quality bino, a lot of the higher-end glass comes at a pretty heavy weight penalty as well. The only bino's that can optically beat the Vortex Razor in build quality and glass quality in the same (market) price range ($6-$700) is the Meostars, but the Meostars are significantly heavier and for me were not worth the weight for the small gain in edge to edge clarity.
I think a bunch of the vortex hate is unwarranted and there is a ton of people speaking poorly without actually experiencing the glass for themselves.
The current optics that I use while hunting/scouting are:
Razor HD 10x42's
Meostar S2 Spotter
Meostar 15x16 Binos
(Swaro ATC in route)
Razor 4K Range Finder
Tripod's
Vortex Skyline (Best all-around tripod I've used)
Sirui T024KS-VA-5 (Awesome lightweight setup)
Sirui VA-5 custom window mount
Scopes are mostly Leopold with a couple of Vortex,
