I respect your opinion, it is a nice rig.
"How you hunt and where you hunt will have a lot to do with what glass your rifle will wear."(AWS)
"What Features",
Rock solid dialing, I have a BDC on my open country scope it will get me to 500 yards , never have to touch the scope and yes I do take it to the range and check my holds. The only time my rifle gets dialed is sighting it in. As far as always being in the thick stuff, it is my favorite kind of hunting, up close and personal is a rush. That said I will hunt open country but if I have to take over a 300 yards shot I figure I screwed up the stand and would rather pass on it and come back another time and do it right. I can hold on fur to 300 yrds and even a duplex works fine out there.
High end glass, predators are big, I can see higher end optic for GS and PD's halfway across the county, coyotes are big you can see them out there quite a ways with lesser glass. and like I said glass has come a long way, even very low end scopes like a($90) Weaver 1-4x24mm scope I tested had glass we would have died for 50 yrs ago and the cheap little Konus($139) 1.5-6x44 on my AR is bright and clear.
Weaver 1-4x24
Konus Pro 1.5-6x44
My goto guns have proven optics on them, scopes from Burris, Sightron, Leupold, Meopta work well. They just aren't over the top expensive.
From the write ups here and other sites a newbie would get the impression that you can't harvest a coyote unless you have a high-end rifle and at least $1500. worth of scope on it. Most called coyotes are killed under 300 yards and a Savage Axis and a Leupold Freedom 3-9 will get the job done reliably. My old Rem 600 in 223 with a Weaver K-4 killed a lot of predators from WI to MT until the barrel was toast with nary a hiccup, with your thinking I never should have gotten out of Ozaukee County without it failing.
A scope is just a sighting device as long as it will keep the crosshairs in the same place it will kill critters.
Last PM convention I shot this in the Egg Shoot, Champions division and made it to the third round, 50+ year old B&L Balvar 8 and on the way back to camp from the shoot stopped and killed a coyote with it. I drove nearly a thousand miles and entered a competition with the scope and killed coyotes. I bought two of these scopes for $60/2. Heck it doesn't even have turrets.
Drove from WA to WI and relied on a Weaver V-3, absolutely reliable.
The list could go on and on about drive back and forth across the country and relying on under $300 scopes to get the job done and they do.