Thank you all for the replies!

The same guys I spoke to who were hating on Leupold did mention the durability as you guys have mentioned here so perhaps they were just comparing them to really high end scopes.

In general they thought that Zeiss, Smith & Bender, etc. made significantly superior scopes than Leupold. But as you all have eluded to, they are still great scopes nonetheless.

I'm eyeing the Vari-X III 1.5-5x20mm for my next rifle!