First of all I have to say that I have a pair of Minox HGs which I bought quite a few years back from the USA for £400 and I am very pleased with them and would recommend them as Minox, all across their range, seem to be at a very nice spot on the price versus performance graph. I have compared them to other, more expensive, options and while some of the others might give an image that "feels" better my experience has been that for me they wouldn't give any big advantage. My view is that top end Zeiss consistently have the best glass but that having it isn't going to add much, or maybe anything, to my ability to shoot deer. I have compared my Minox to some of the other top end glass at last light and formed the view that the Minox was better.
The other side of this coin is that if you were to buy top end glass second hand at a reasonable price then you could probably keep it a few years and sell it for in and around what you paid for it. Let someone else take the big hit on buying new and your "total cost of ownership" of good glass can be next to nothing. That is certainly a very attractive option and would give you the satisfaction of owning one of the big brands. Macleods of Tain get a good reputation for 2nd hand glass and it might be worth a chat with them.
However, even second hand the top end glass might be out of your reach and given that I would certainly recommend looking at Minox as they have binos at most price points plus, as mentioned above, you see one or other of their models on offer at a good price quite often.