It sounds like you got a lemon as well as a lot of other people.
Didn't vortex come out and upgrade the eye piece on the origional Razor because of a bad eye box? And didn't they come out with a Gen II Razor that fixed a lot of the complaints from the first gen? They were up front and advertised those upgrades. I don't see why they wouldn't advertise this one.
"I don't know how else to tell you, its different." - Everything published by Vortex on the scope says that its the same as all the other Viper's but you say its different. You say your 4-16 is the same quality as your 6-24 but cobracutter says "The 4-16 and 6-24 have the "same glass" but most people say the 6-24 looks better for some reason."
"I don't know how else to tell you, its different." - In your opinion its different. In Vortex's opinion its the same. If you don't believe me check out their website.
Like I said, I can't say either way because I've never looked through the x32, much less side by side with an older one. It seems to me that there are a lot of subjective opinions being passed around and maybe some bad quality control at Vortex.
I also don't understand why so many unhappy Vortex customer's keep upgrading to the new Vortex if they're really that unhappy with them?
P.S. I have a funny story the broken windage on your scope mad me think of. One of my first scopes was a Super Sniper 10x about 6-7 years ago. I was boresighting my rifle with it and when I'd move the turret "UP" the reticle would move down relative to the target. I didn't get the concept and I swore to SWFA it was bad. I'm sure they thought I was an idiot but they replaced the scope for me, no questions asked.