This forum has a severe fetish for 'glass'. You guys wax long over optical qualities like a bunch of beard twirling hipsters at a brewery sampling craft beer. As if any optic costing over 1000usd and made in the last 5 years has such bad optical quality that it will not allow you see your target at any reasonable and realistic distance.
This is just like photography in terms of cost of glass and who buys them. I know a guy w/an $8000.00 Hasselblad X2D 100 w/a $5000.00 lens on it that could probably be outshot by Stevie Wonder. Does he care, no. Can he afford it, yes. Does he buy expensive cameras like candy, yes.
I've had a severe fetish for glass since I was about 12, which grew into a career as a photographer where I bought the Nikon and Zeiss glass I dreamed about, which grew into using the gear as a business.
We used to love it when doctors and lawyers who thought that because they were smart at what they did, didn't believe that there was a steep learning curve to photography/a hill you have to climb before you can buy a Hasselblad and start doing good work.
After they're disappointed in the results they got from a 5 grand camera, we then bought the camera for 2 grand less, almost unused.
That's the best thing about deep pockets buying cameras they can't exploit to their fullest potential, which is using them 5-6 times, putting it in a closet to attract dust, and selling to a deserving up and coming shooter who can scrape together the money to get a camera he can get to "sing".
I go down to Orange County Camera, camera store for the Orange County rich folks, and was having a conversation w/the owner who was telling me about this guy who'd bought and sold back to him the same $17,000 Leica
7 times over a period of about 2 years.
The owner told me he's made so much money off this one camera, he won't sell it to anybody else, it just sits there waiting for this same guy to show up.
So you're 100 correct, somebody who knows what they're doing and can't afford the more expensive gear anway, can buy a $1000 scope, or a camera w/a $1000 lens can do dynamite work.
There are guys on here who buy these scopes like candy and that's fine too, since it ends up in them being sold for a big discount so that the guys who can really make 'em "talk" can scrape together the money to get a scope or camera gear they can use.
BTW: There's nothing wrong with being a collector, I think that's what some folks are whether they realize it or not.