There's a couple of other considerations in scopes beyond clarity, light-gathering, and accuracy, too. Some years back, I outfitted a couple of rifles with Simmons scopes, as I was impressed with how much scope I got with so little money. The clarity was good, the light-gathering was good, and I got decent to excellent accuracy in them.
The problem was, they weren't repeatable (6 marks down, shoot, and 6 marks up did NOT equal the same spot, nor anything close to the same spot), and they weren't tough. One required the rings to be set extremely wide to keep the tube from flexing, and the other one broke under the recoil of simply shooting the rifle on the bench.
While I'd be fine with putting a Simmons on a cheap pawn shop rifle for play, I wouldn't put on on a serious hunting rifle that I depended on to make my hunting trip a success. Unfortunately, I've had to find out that you sometimes only get what you pay for.
Good luck on the hunt for a great rifle. I personally couldn't disagree with any of the suggestions here.