Hi Alan,
Thanks for the explanation.
It is more or less as I thought, though expressed far more coherently and eloquently than I would have managed!

I take some hope from the fact that both you and Amac have recently bought "affordable" Hawke scopes that do work accurately.
I would happily pay around the £200.00 mark for a scope that was guaranteed to perform correctly but I wonder how many retailers would put the shutters up when they saw you coming to return your fourth or fifth inaccurate scope?!

Luckily, the only AO scope that I have purchased was a heavily discounted
Nikko 3-9x50 for around £35.00 so it has not proved to be an expensive lesson.
The next will be no more than x16 magnification with a 40mm-ish objective lens and side focus. Hopefully by the time that I have spare cash and feel inclined to experiment with a better scope there may have been some improvement in manufacturing methods.

Regards
Clive