Have you looked at the Leupold Mark AR series? The 1.5-4x with Firedot illumination is only 450 at optics planet.
Personally, I feel that the illumination is 100% necessary to make a variable 1x scope pay for itself. With mine, I can barely pick up the reticle indoors without the illumination turned on. If I went sans illumination, then I would opt for a 3-9x or similar. Without illumination you pretty much lose the close quarters capability of the 1x setting, as it's basically supposed to be a stand in red dot on 1x. I think the only place for non-illuminated 1-4x scopes is hunting dangerous game, and only then if it's going to be in full daylight. But even then I would still want illumination if it were available, and for certain if I were doing any hunting at dusk or dawn.
Also, a 1-4x needs really good glass to be of any use. Since you don't have much magnification to work with, it's absolutely vital that the image be 100%, otherwise you might as well have iron sights. That's the secret behind low fixed power optics like the ACOG is they have super high quality glass. Basically what I'm saying is that it's better to have no magnification than to have a distorted image at 4x, as the distortion pretty much cancels out any advantage there might have been, especially in dim lighting, like on a cloudy day.
Unfortunately, the 1-4x scopes are an inherently expensive game. I strongly feel that the Leupold Mark AR series is probably the least expensive option in that ballpark. I've never used one, but I know that Leupold doesn't use cheap glass in anything they make. As for Burris, I've heard that their top of the line glass is on par with Leupold's standard quality glass. With the Leupold Mark AR you're basically trading .5x of magnification range for better glass in a less expensive package. For a true 1-4x scope with decent glass, you're probably looking at a minimum of 7-8 hundred, and an average of more like 1200. There are also other factors, too, like the eye relief and how forgiving the "eyebox" is. 1x variable scopes aren't all that user friendly if they don't have a fairly generous eyebox.
