I own a Meade 4" SCT. I purchased this scope in the late 80's and have never had any problems with it. I've taken this scope all over the place, even to the top of mountains.

I've used used all kinds of scopes over the years and by comparison, I think Meade makes an excellent product for the price. Meade does have a greater range of products than they ever offered in the past.

Meade has diversified into the low end scope business lately. I remember when I purchased my scope, Meade did not make any low end scopes at all. At that time, they offered a pretty decent quality 60mm and 80mm refractor with decent equatorial mounts as their entery level scopes. Now you can get a $100 Meade 60mm refractor at Wal-Mart, that looks as bad as any Tasco I've ever seen. But, that is not to say that their higher end scopes are bad quality.

Yes, you can get better quality than Meade, but at a much higher cost.