My thoughts on the scope market and comparing apples to oranges is that the sub $1000 market is where the risk lies. The greater risk I should say. The VERY large majority of scopes sold are in this price point. But the risk of getting a lemon or very sub par optic is much greater here. You may get a decent scope. You may not. Most people in this group dont even do tracking tests on their scopes, so they have no idea at what level of reliability it is performing. They mount it, shoot it, and if they hit the target and it doesn't break, they go on Facebook and proclaim what a great scope it is. And it must be, they own it, right?
In today's market, there are a lot of great scopes at >$1000 that track great, are durable, and can be counted on to perform reliably. Being one of those guys that's put a lot of scopes side by side, I can honestly say anything between $1000 to $1400 is pretty close in glass. You could give one brand or another the nod and say it's a little better, but it's not a significant difference. It's not enough to improve your hit ratio.
The $1400 to $2000 range is where things get really cool.. You start seeing scopes that have all the qualities of the most expensive scopes, but now you're also starting to see some pretty nice glass. I personally think this is the sweet spot in the market. Great scopes at affordable price points. Well made, reliable, dependable, First world optics. The guys that want a nice optic but dont want to commit to an alpha scope are pretty willing to pay this amount, and for the most part, are pretty happy with their choice.
Once you go above this range, you can simplify the attributes of the scope. You're paying for glass. And we all know there is some pretty sweet glass out there. It's a pleasure to look through an optic and see that Ansel Adam's detal. But again, this won't net you any more hits downrange. I could make a fair argument for saying your hit ratio wont improve over the $1k class scopes.
So I think it makes it pretty easy for people to claim certain scopes punch above their weight class, because what are you really comparing? The ability to see and hit your target? Tracking? The fact that the parallax actually functions? The Devil is in the Details.. and a lot of folks don't understand the details that separate one level of quality from another.