[Soldant]

Haha, you actually posted in the thread back when it was active

The short of it is that it was one of these. Just a different branding, a $600 price tag (or $700, can't remember too clearly now), and a salesman well versed in speechcraft.

Furthermore, there is one of these in the focuser, which means it's a spherical mirror. From the thread:

Spherically shaped lenses and mirrors share a problem: their shape. Parallel light rays that bounce off the central region of a spherical mirror focus farther away than light rays that bounce off the edges. This results in many focal points, which produce a blurry image. To get a clear image, all rays need to focus at the same point.

Apparently that'd be fine if everything worked as intended. The problem is that it doesn't. Further quote (from you actually):

The issue is not that there is a barlow in the focuser, but whether it works. If it was a good mirror with a good barlow lens, then it would be a good scope! But the reason a built-in barlow rings alarm bells for me is that it does not give the user the option whether to use a barlow or not. It says to me: this mirror is so bad that you don't want to see how it performs at its native focal length.

Terrible optics + terrible mount = utter rubbish. I even pulled it apart to see what everything looked like (just for fun), and found it to be of terrible construction. The tube was bent out of shape and had rough edges that hadn't been filed down. Sitcky tape (STICKY TAPE?) the common garden variety sticky tape, was used to apparently try to protect the underside of the mirror from hitting metal edges. Under the tape were four tiny, thin, totally useless pieces of foam. The mirror showed a few imperfections, namely chips here and there and a few scratches, that you can only see if you pull it apart and play with it for a bit. The spider clamp for the secondry (which also indicently has a chip, but a rather obvious one) is thick, bulky, and happily bends the tube further, and features sharp edges all too happy to slice open all manner of fleshy objects that venture too close to it. Not to mention the fact that the focuser juts so far into the tube it's a wonder that they didn't just let it touch the secondry mirror, just for kicks.

The mount though is truly from the deepest, darket region of a chineese sweatshop. It grinds, grates and generally happily makes itself heavy, with terrible legs that can't sufficiently hold the weight of the scope. But the controls! Downright TERRIBLE! All attempts to secure the scope result in a little game. The game is to see how long you can go without the locking screws totally failing and sending the scope towards the sky, like it's looking up waiting for a lightning bolt. The controls have terrible slack that lets the scope freely glide without any restraint, all under its own power and the forces of gravity. Actually the pieces themselves look like they're threatening to go on strike and simply fall off the mount. Tighten them up so that it looks like they fit together (almost like it was INTENDED to be that way) and they seize up, refusing to work until you take them back to their original, "Watch me I'm gonna fall!" state.

In all, one of the worst things to wander out of... wherever it came from.

EDIT:

I suggest, that you go down to the shop in question; take the scope with you and tell him that you want your money back. Mention the Trade Practices Act and say that it is not of merchantible quality. That means you should get your money back. Tell him that if he does not return the money you will report him to consumer affairs dept. This usually does the trick, however if he does not help then you must report him. Consumer affairs takes a dim view of people like this. I am sure that with a little mucking around you will get your money back and put it to good use with a new scope.

Do I actually have a basis for this complaint though? I don't have nor remember the original advertisement, which means he could have made no false claims about it at all and therefore delivered a product that did exactly as it said it would: allow you to look at the planets and various DSOs. They just never mentioned that looking through a coke bottle filled with water while dancing around to techno music would probably serve you better. Since he doesn't sell the telescopes anymore (and doesn't advertise them... how interesting) I can't find that out either. Even if I did threaten him I doubt he'd do anything, just say "Okay I'll call Optisan and ask them!" while the scope sat in the shop. If I did take it further I doubt I'd win.