That much more value in a $1000 scope vs a $250....absolutely not, IMO. You wont have 4 times the success, kill 4 times as many trophy bucks, or whatever your goal is. Some would justify it by saying that if I hunt with it 10,000 times and one time it makes the difference, it was worth the $750 extra. Its all about your outlook.
In my couple decades of hunting, I have not missed an opportunity yet because the scopes I use did not perform well enough. There is no right or wrong answer to the question really. I am like you in that the value is not there for me but for the next man it makes perfect sense. I limit myself to to the $200-300 range, generally catching them on sale when I buy.
Even my vx-ii, elite 4200, fullfield II, etc provide a much brighter picture than my eye does with out the scope. I often wonder how you can safely hunt when your eye cant make out the target due to darkness, but you can point your gun in the direction and get a bright picture. How does everybody get around this issue?
One person mentioned a good set of binos which seems the safest and most logical. I believe that most hunters use their scope to examine the target in low light conditions.
