@LeadZeke
Battery availability is a definite concern, but the shelf life isn't actually a big problem to my understanding. AFAIK the number they give is just how long the battery will retain a certain percentage of its charge, not necessarily how long the battery will remain usable. CR2032s lose about 1% charge per year, I think I've read of people dropping CR2032s that were like 30 years old into their devices and they still powered up fine.
The main problem with batteries rather is just how quickly most LPVOs will go through them, finding a scope that will give more than 100 hours of daylight bright illumination seems to be the exception and not the rule.
There hasn't been much discussion of the Elcan in this thread so I guess I'll give my thoughts on it, the mount gets a lot of flak but I've heard of few problems in actual practice besides the levers not fitting well on some rails. You can swap them out for the upgraded Mk2 ARMS levers for relatively little cost and time.
People often seem to think the Elcan is heavy, I can only assume this is because either they thought it looked thicc or they read the stat number without thinking a little more about it. The latest gen 1/4x model weighs 21.9 ounces, or 22.0 ounces with the Mk2 ARMS. Subtract the weight of a Scalarworks LEAP mount and you get 16.4-16.5 ounces. If you'd normally use say a Larue LT104 then you'd subtract 7.1 ounces for a total of 14.8-14.9 ounces. The SpecterDR is one of the lightest combat grade variable scopes that I know of.
Regarding your concern of reticle usability without illumination, I would say it's ok, I would guess better than the NX8 and the ATACR but not as good as the Razor 1-6. It has however by far the best battery life of any scope discussed thus far, barring the Accupoint for obvious reasons. I tested the brightest dot setting on the Elcan to last about 4 weeks with a single CR2032 battery, this setting is nuclear bright to the point of practically still being visible when looking at the sun. The 2nd highest dot setting is what I would call mid daylight bright and is well suited for most situations, it yields about 10 weeks of battery life. The 3rd dot setting is high end daylight visible and reportedly lasts for over a year, probably about 2 years with the newer CR2032 battery cap models.
The eyebox on the SpecterDR is huge, better than the Razor and Swarovski Z6i and by extension likely the K16i as well. I have seen some people call it small, I am guessing this is because they didn't set up their eye relief properly or they were just going off of exit pupil numbers without finding out whether they were actually relevant in practice. In addition the eyebox barely shrinks when going from 1x to 4x; I measured the diameter of the 1x eyebox at about 22-23mm across and the diameter of the 4x eyebox at about 20-21mm across. In fact the 4x eyebox on the Elcan is actually better than the 3x (and ofc 4x) eyebox on a Vortex PST 3-15x.
The field of view is quite large although the scope housing appears fairly thick, I figure that's a fair tradeoff since seeing more of the area in your optic probably matters more than seeing more area outside your optic, hence EOtechs. Light transmission at both 1x and 4x appears to be practically perfect, no discernible loss of resolution compared to the naked eye from my experience. The full reticle illumination seems like it would be very useful for night time use.
One thing that some people may find a bit different is the color of the glass, it's very yellow and warm in tone, light surfaces like walls and the such often appear almost stained. This can help improve contrast under some circumstances but it may be somewhat offputting to those who are accustomed to more of a neutral color palette.
On the whole I really haven't been able to find anything bad to say about the Elcan, the only major downside is being limited to 4x on the top end. Windage marks and less ocular occlusion would be nice but realistically, no scope is going to be exactly perfect.