and the dot isn't a perfect dot (neither is my Aimpoint)
This is because you have a bit of astigmatism in your eye. Don't believe me, take a photo through the sight with the dot on I'll bet the dot is round in the picture.
Lots of cheap == crap commnets, but my experience with cheap scopes and red dots is generally pretty good. Yup they ain't as good as my Luepold, Nikon, and EOTech but I've outfited 4-8 guns with the cheap stuff for the price of one of the good.
Bottom line, I shoot better with a cheap optic than I do with irons so they are very much "worth it". 50+ year old eyeballs do not need state of the art optics to be helped greatly. In my 20s I had no use for optics. Since I had Lasik a bit over a year ago, I'm able to at least use iron sights again, but I still do better aided by the cheap optics.
The better optics are clearly better, but I'd rather buy more guns & ammo than more expensive optics. All things considered the Vortex Strikefire red/green dot is well worth $150 (agree the magnifier is pretty useless), also I really like the Barska M16 Electro sight, very bright and its held up well on my RRA LR-308, well worth the ~$70 I paid. In the $200 range I like the Millet 1x4 DMS scope and the Burris Fastfire super small red dot, which is small enough for handguns.
Who'd but a $30 optic on a $1000+ gun, I would!:
Its worked so well I've never felt the need for better. I got the mount (over $100!
) and had the red dot was hot to try the new mount on the gun so I put the two together and was thrilled with how well it worked speed shooting steel plates.
--wally.