I think that size and power is an excellent choice. They're not too heavy nor bulky, they'll give reasonable performance in poor light, and they can be held steady enough just in the hand (if you haven't been exerting yourself too much). I always have a cheap pair of 8x40 on the kitchen table for watching the bird feeders in the garden.
I've had three pairs of Opticron binoculars for between fifteen and twenty years (8X25, 7x50 waterproof with compass and 11x80), and although they can't really compete with expensive brands on image quality they've all been fine for the jobs they've needed to do for me.
If I were choosing between similarly priced binoculars of similar performance, other things being equal I'd go for the ones that would focus the closest. If I've one criticism of my 11x80s it's that they won't focus much closer than about ten metres. I bought them for star-gazing but I sometimes use them for viewing wildlife in very poor light, when nothing else short of the Yukon NVMT2 will see anything. The lack of a close focus is often a serious limitation.
I haven't kept up to date on pricing so I can't say what's a good price.
Oh, and did I mention that they're a fraction of Leica/Zeiss/Swaro prices..........
