I wouldn't call Seek is a junk but a toy as the price is low. In fact, I believe it is the best entry point for a beginner/hobbyist with its price/resolution ratio. Considerably wide range of accurate temperature reading. The Flir one is even worse than the Seek.
But I do agree most of your points, Seek really is a cheap made product. The sensor is cheap and noisy. Dark corner/edges probably due to the cheap lens and poor thermal isolation of the housing.
I did consider the HTI 301 as an upgrade over seek. For lots of the videos on YouTube, it is rare to see the calibration (some said once in a minute). Image looks a lot better than seek.
However, it doesn't support IOS which means I have to spend a couple hundreds more for a good Android phone to use it (neither the therm-app). Therefore, I haven't made a decision yet.
My application is mostly taking videos without the needs of reading temperature. So shutterless would be the best for me while maintaining 15+ hz with resolution around 320x240.
Monocular might be a better choice for me in this case I think.
I'm really disappointed in seek because they did not upgrade their cameras during 4(?) years, made disappointing seek shot pro(had one, sold after 1 month) and went making crowd control cams, forgetting about consumer products. And their noise is legendary, looks like they reside near a junk yard with flir bosons that failed QC.
Well, if you stick to ios you can only get good picture from monoculars with wifi/bluetooth and buiilt-in recorder. I bought used samsumg galaxy s for less than 150$, works fine, battery is enough for 1-4 hours of shooting. The thing that isnt said in most reviews - hti301(my model is 2020 i guess) is wobbling in usb socket and loses connection frequently, q1 and therm-app dont. I was told that xtherm t3s sits tight too, by summer i will see myself.
About monoculars, i have Pulsar xp50, in my country you can find it used for about 2000-2500$ and the repairs service is best possible, i was told numerous times. Looks like these w*ckos missed their chance to recruit me as an baby-ambassador so i can tell you some great and sad truths here if you see them cheap and consider buying)) The sharpness is outstanding, the noise is visible, dead pixels too, not similar to therm-app on same ulis generation. Removeable battery is good, enough uncovered info for now) Xp and xp2 are surely great in sharpness, xq 1 and 2 are a bit softer because pics and videos are made with screen resolution which is 640*480 or 1024*768, see their specs. And you can change lenses on them, quite easily but sometimes expensively. i got my 28 1,2 for 280$ but they are more expensive abroad. 12m axions are junk, axion xq38 is more pocketable but is slightly inferior to helion xq's
Other good looking(i mean pictures) and quite cheap monoculars are made by Infiray - but there are complexities there too. The only worthy series are xeye 3 and 6, cheaper ones are junk, except DL13, its nice and pocketable and even works with thermviewer but lens is 13mm only and you will have kinda tough time adapting another(though Q1 lenses might fit, their thread is smaller but might have smaller flange distance) Didn't see any info about changing lenses on xeyes at all, which is strange. 1st series of xeye are per-pixel sharp and have far less noise than pulsar, but you have absolute 0 control of picture - in pulsar you can change and even modify scene modes a bit, in thermviewer supported models (thermapp, t3s/301, DL13) you can fix and move 1 temperature threshold, with q1 on pc - both. Second versions of xeye are mostly the same but have 12m sensor and different image engine, in this year it got different again with new firmware
and most funnily, both 3-2 and 6-2 have resolution output of 768*576 pixels, first generation was per-pixel 384*288 or 640*512. I played with xeye 6-2 pro and there is Hungarian hunter blog website which has review for almost every iray monocular, its readable with google translate) Both pulsar and xeye have manual calibration without clicking shutter.
Since you have Canadian flag, you can consider Flir too, but scouts have only analog output and no built-in recorder, love clicking and don't have manual calibration. Scions are a thing i never saw in person, specs are kinda fine but they are made on bosons, if they are commercial grade like scout 3's tau2's(and maybe earlier scouts too, still investigating), you will not only get less sensivity and more noise but also more dead pixels and other unpleasant stuff, see boson engineering datasheet