Like you, I have in the past always gone with Leupold for my scope. In the past 2-3 years I've been venturing out trying other scopes to see what they have to offer and have, on a few occassions, looked at very low priced ($35-$120) scopes in hopes of finding a sleeper. One of the low end scopes I've tried was a BEC 3-9X42 Compact. In short, it is an incredible piece of junk. You name it, slight discolored tint, serious image distortion away from the center of the lens, serious parallex, extremely short eye relief (even with the magnification set at its lowest), tracking errors, poor finish (paint errors), despite having what looks like a locking ring for focusing the ocular bell, neither the ring or the bell move, alotta play between clicks, etc. It does have a lifetime gaurantee, though, but IMO, the postage isn't worth it. Have tried BSA and even Horton (for a .22 lr). It will be hard to see the shortcomings of a scope unless you have a good one on hand to look through and compare with. I thought the BSA looked passable for use until I was shooting one of regular Leupolds with it.
My conclusion is, never buy anything optical from China. At least for now. Who knows, maybe the big names will start setting up shops in China in the future to make scopes. Do not spent less than $200 (for my serious guns).