After spending a few more hours researching various threads on the AR15 Forum where there are hundreds if not a thousand users of these two brands (EoTech and Aim Point) the main detraction regarding the EoTech seems to be not the optics, since that's subjective (not quality issues), battery life, because that is what it is, the user needs live with it or not.
It seems that commencing in 2010 when the issues with the 500 series until the XPS came out there were many 500 units that had issues due to battery orientation and recoil affect and subsequent electronics failures. That seems to have passed with the transverse design. Is that a safe assumption? I couldn't find and failure issues with the new design, just the age old AP vs EoTech standard stuff.
I stopped dedicated research, myself, when I got to that point because I decided there was no way I could trust the company (eotech) that put out so many units known to be of poor quality, for so long. When I want quality, when I want something that WILL WORK, I try to avoid companies that basically say "yeah, we know our product was crap before, but we just now fixed it, it works, we promise!". Maybe 5+ years later I will buy that, if it still looks that way. Maybe.
BTW: I have never ever been a fan of arf.com, going back years and years before I even had an interest in AR15s, let alone owned one. Give me the rifle section of a different board or m4carbine.net every time. (that's where the real subject matter experts and industry professionals post, BTW)