My preference anywhere near $1500 is usually the Delta Stryker, but a new Cronus for $1200 is very hard to beat.
The SWFA Black Friday price is $900-ish usually and IMHO, it's a better value at $900 than the Cronus is at $1200. But the Cronus is a slightly better scope - mainly the extra mag power is nice when shooting prone (unless you're confident you'll be dealing with mirage all the time). I wasn't crazy about the glass in the Cronus I had (compared to what I read online) and the focus knob wasn't quite as effortless as the others. It was fine, but both my SWFA HD 5-20 and my Delta Stryker were better glass-wise, but we're splitting hairs, especially between the Athlon and SWFA. All of these scopes are noticeably, significantly better than the Burris XTR2.
Bottom line, I've owned or spent a decent amount of time behind almost everything in this price range except the Chinese Athlons, and the only two I kept for any significant amount of time were the SWFA HD 5-20 and the Delta Stryker 4.5-30. Both had great glass, perfect reliability, good eyeboxes, and reticles that I like.