I finally had the chance to look through the 8x32 Terra ED myself, and I was very impressed, especially considering its price.
As background, I ended up deciding to buy an 8x32 Conquest HD. This turned out to have some QC issues that resulted in it being sent to Germany for a repair job, and I was told to expect it to be gone for 10 weeks. I didn't want to go that long without birding, so I decided to order the 8x32 Terra ED and 8x30 Monarch 7, and keep whichever impressed me the most (or perhaps unimpressed me the least). The Terra arrived first and I brought it to a local spot yesterday afternoon; it performed admirably (see below). The Monarch came today, and long story short I decided to keep the Terra. People have compared and re-compared these models, but I'd like to offer my 2 cents anyway. I obviously wasn't able to directly compare them to the Conquest, but I consider myself familiar enough with their characteristics to make a rough comparison.
Image Sharpness
The Monarch 7 is the definite winner here; its center sharpness is at or just slightly below what I remember my Conquest's to be. Terra is noticeably softer, but I can't say that it affects the ability to resolve much; I tried comparing resolutions by reading text at a distance and there wasn't a situation where the Monarch resolved something the Terra couldn't. When I used the Terras yesterday I was getting sharp images of waterfowl at around 300 yards, and at that distance the size is pretty small and you're limited more by magnification than anything. I especially think that there would be a difference between the two in daily use, since the vibrations of my hands seemed to impose the biggest limit on resolution.
Focuser
My first birding binocular was an old Monarch ATB in 2011 and the 8x32 SE was my primary binocular for about 3 years, so I'm used to (and probably biased towards) the resistance and smoothness of Nikon's focusers. They must use a bit of grease in the workings though, because the Monarch 7 made interesting "greasy" sounds when the focuser was reversed. The Terra's focuser was of a similar stiffness, but less "lush" I would say. Probably less grease
I wish the ribbing on the Terra's focuser was closer together, that's my only real complaint. My preference is the Monarch.
Ease of view
The Monarch's eyecups have a smaller diameter which fits my eyes more comfortably, and also seems to make eye placement more natural. In the Terra, I had to spend more time than usual making sure that both of my eyes were properly centered in the field. I think both binoculars were more finicky in terms of eye placement than my Conquests; if my eyes were off center at all I noticed that a good part of the field of view became fuzzy.
Ergonomics
The Monarch's barrels were too close together at my IPD for me to comfortably wrap my hands around them. The Terra had a little more space, and it turned out to be just enough. Now I think I understand why the Conquest's designers gave the 8x32 such a long bridge--it's much more comfortable for my large hands to hold!
For each of the points above, the Monarch beat the Terra, but I ended up going with the Terra because of the final point:
Glare
My Terra sample had spectacular glare control. It is probably even better than my Conquests, which had issues only when the sun or other source of bright light was almost perpendicular with the binoculars. When I was out yesterday afternoon, I really didn't notice any glare to speak of.
My simple indoor test with the Monarch today was enough to convince me that it has the potential for some very serious glare. Its prism housing is, as others have noted, not blackened. This results in bright flares very near the exit pupils when a bright object is around 20-30 degrees away. It was bad, so much so that I disqualified the Monarchs on that fact alone.
Summary: I will be happy with my Terras. My limited use so far has convinced me that they should be as effective as the Conquests as an ID tool; time will tell if they have limitations. But if these serve me well over the next 10 weeks, there may be some Conquests up for sale in the near future
Also, I truly underestimated the performance of this tier of binoculars. You can certainly get a more pleasing image by spending more money, but I'm not sure that it is a more useful image. Perhaps durability is going to be less in these lower-priced models, but then again my 2 month-old Conquests are out of action for 10 weeks...