They are rubber coated and seem to be quite durable. The depth of field is large enough so once you set them to your eyes you don't have to refocus. As far as the center focussing wheel goes, they do not have one since it isn't necessary. They have a substantial eye relief (24mm as I recall) so eyeglass wearers like me have no trouble seeing the entire field. The 30mm lens give sufficient light gathering power for daytime use. They have a wide field of view - 8.5 degrees - which makes picking up moving targets very easy. They weigh 1.75 pounds and we have no trouble holding them for extended periods.
My wife and I use Fujinon 6x30 FMT-SX's which are made to the same standards as Fuji's professional bino's. You're right, you don't need astro bino's for birdwatching. Canon's image stabilization binoculars really work and in practice give me the best results for 10x glasses if I don't have a tripod mounting. The Nikon 10x42mm Premier SE are porro prism designs that are as sharp, color-free and neutral as I've seen anywhere. Never mind the fact that during daylight hours your pupils are too small to accept that much light in anyway! An 8-10x42 optic makes much more sense and the Leicas mentioned in the original posting are absolutely wonderful. The Fujinon astro binoculars (70x10 FMT-SX) are very nice for stargazing, but terrible for birdwatching and most other terrestrial applications: they're too heavy to hand-hold for more than a few seconds, they don't have a central focus wheel, and their exit pupils are so big (7mm) that they will make you aware of whatever off-axis anomalies there are in your eyes, such as astigmatism, that you might not notice with a more reasonable 4-5mm exit pupil. In fact, I like them so much it inspired me to buy an M camera later Leica claim they have improved this model since but I can't imagine how and I haven't even bothered to try the new ones.
The glass is top quality and reminds me very much of the highly satisfying results that so easily come when using great camera lenses by Leica or Zeiss.
I especially enjoy the quality when using them on close up items such as summer dragonflies at 10-12' away. They have performed brilliantly to date and it is easy to confidently wash off any salt residues or saltmarsh mud picked up. carried in a canvas bag on the deck of a very small boat awash with salt water. Finally, I looked around on price and got a deal where the Leicas were competitive with the Sws which settled it for me.ฤก00% waterproofing was essential as I wanted to regularly use them in damp conditions with the outside possibility of an unintentional complete dip in salt water now and then or at best getting soaked e.g. Although the Sw optics were excellent, I can't say I found them to be better, I also didn't like the body design of these as much as the rubber armoured Leica's. I carefully compared them with similar 8 x 32 models available from Minox and Swarovski (Sw) at the time and I preferred the Leica glass and ergonomics. In the field, they are superb with good depth of field for easy focusing and not too much power so trembling kept to a minimum even when out of puff a bit after climbing a hill where their light weight and size is a bonus. Although they are not ideally sized for theatres/concerts, carried there in a shoulder bag, they work very well and don't look ridiculous in use.
I use a pair of Leica 8x32's which I bought new five or six years ago opting for the compact size of these 32s so that they could do a bit of everything.