Funny that, I have not long sold mine and wish I had not.
I am lucky enough to have one of the new viper connect prototypes, with a production unit inbound, so it would have been nice to have kept it.
I agree with everything you say TBH, the scope was originally built by HTH, and Vlad was a Soviet, so it kind of made sense.
I never tried the concrete test as it goes.
The 01 works very well in low light with quite a low powered lamp, but it gets interesting with close in targets as the hold over can be quite large.
My first shot in anger went over the bunny's nut, the FOV just told the brain that it was further away...unfortuneatley he let me have another shot...foolish bunny.
The problem generally was that there was little leeway with the head position, Standing and kneeling was ok, and the scope gave another point of contact for stability, but prone could be down right painfull.
It worked better with an adjustable stock/cheekpiece.
Misting can also be a problem with the eye in such close proximity to the ocular.
Mine did a couple of seasons on a rabbit gun, then 2 on a squirrel gun.
To be fair though, the only similarity with the viper connect is the clarity and FOV.