your comment had me wondering if the dial wouldn't be more pleasing to the eye if the date wasn't angled... hhmmm a quick and dirty shot at photo manipulation:

IMHO it is more pleasing with a non-angled date. I believe this would have been easy enough to do without movement modifications and other difficulties.
And a pirate patch over the date eye:
And how about a 3rd option with a date hand along with the permanent senconds hand at 6? I don't dare to venture there in photoshop and I have no idea if it could easily be done movement wise.
I must apologize for the poor quality of manipulation, but with all the comments on this date window I couldn't resist a quick shot at it...
Nikolaj
(I assume that it is clear to all that the pictures were taken by Nicolas... and destroyed by me)
This message has been edited by nikolaj on 2010-01-26 15:08:22