I have a Nikon Action VII series 8x50. Bought it for 6,000. Before buying it, many people told me it would be too heavy to carry around, but I have experienced no such problem with it. The light gathering advantages (of 50 over 40) are very noticeable and do make a big difference. The optical quality, needless to say, is outstanding. And these binoculars are very sturdy as well.
So if you can stretch your budget a little I would strongly recommend this model.
I had also tried the Olympus 8-16x40 zoom binocs. The zoom feature looks useful, but Im not sure how long the mechanism will last.