I am not sure what sort of Gen I wogpotter was using, but aside from the illumination issues, the two that I have own have had very good images. One was a monocular and one a rifle scope. They are better than some Gen II monoculars. I have two such monoculars, one from Night Optics and the other is ATN.
I have an ATN Paladin, Gen I. It is a decent scope and it looks to be about the same behemouth size as wogpotter's Gen II scope. It isn't lightweight. Gen II, like Gen I, will give you green images. Both use image intensifiers.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_vision_device
http://www.atncorp.com/hownightvisionworks
http://www.ar15.com/forums/topic.html?b=6&f=18&t=329958
http://www.nightvision4less.com/comp...technology.htm
200 yards? No problem using an good illuminator and you will be able to ID your targets fine and shoot them out to at least 150 yards. I found that the Luna Optics ELIR3 with the integral weaver mount works great for the purpose. The Paladin comes with a decent illuminator that will get you 75 yards or so, but it isn't great. The ELIR3 will rock your world.
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When you do this the range of the IR light becomes the range of the Night sight as well.
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This is the same concept for Gen II and III under moonless nights, cloudcover, treecover, etc. They do a much much better job than Gen I, but they all HUGELY benefit form IR illuminators.
So you can spend about $1000 on a scope and ELIR3 and get basically as good or even better capabilities that you get with a Gen II scope
With most lower end NV gear, you are limited in recoil to about .308, FYI. Don't put it on your 12 ga or .45-70. There are some more expensive NV gear that will handle the recoil, but price goes up quite a bit.
Do the rifle scopes come with mounts? Sometimes. Usually if they do, they come with weaver mounts. For some, the mount is an additional expense to the scope. It depends on the make and model, so check the specs yourself.
I would not suggest you get a Gen I if you can afford better. You can also get Gen II scopes that are not as bulky as wogpotter's. I would suggest that with whatever scope you get, you get a Luna Optics ELIR illuminator. The folks over at JaegerPro have folks using them with Gen III scopes and getting IDs and hits on hogs out to 500 yards.