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Illuminated reticle can be a good feature but it can also be totally useless.
If you are hunting on public land (WMA) your shooting time is from 30 minutes before sunrise to 30 minutes after sunset and during those first and last 30 minutes you can turn down the magnification on the scope and collect enough light to see your target and reticle without any problem. It is not necessary to have illuminated reticle. I personally just keep my 3-9X scope at 3X for 95% of my shooting and I can see everything.
On private land you can hunt hogs at night (hogs are mostly active at night) with gun light and illuminated reticle can be as asset as it makes it easier to pickup your POA. Some people hunt them at night during full moon in the open land and if you keep your scope set a low power you can pickup the hogs and reticle without too much problem especially if you have light color back ground... like sugar sand. An illuminated scope would help in such hunting situations.
One problem with illuminated reticle is that cheap one are too bright to use during low light periods. Even at the minimum brightness setting they are too bright and you have problem seeing the target. Well made (read expensive) illuminated reticle scopes are useful as their low settings are usually very low and has just a slight red illumination that doesn't destroy rest of the view yet allow you to pickup the POA quickly and easily.
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