There was a great thread stared a few days back on finishing and inward angles on modern Pateks. Now, I don’t have the expertise to judge these beyond “their movements look pretty nice and appealing to me.”
The counterpoint I want to offer is that to me, the appeal of a watch is in more than just the movement finish as a lot goes into developing an emotional connection with the timepiece. As a matter of fact, the nth degree of finishing is not the highest in my list of priorities. We spend most our time looking at the dial and case, so the subtlety, slim timeless designs, wearing comfort and good overall engineering including high (but not necessarily brilliant) finishing, timekeeping precision over time and quality/availability of servicing no matter how old the watch or what condition it is in, are all important, even though I do compromise on one or more of these criteria for the right watch.
Which gets me to my point. Patek just gets the right balance of all these factors better and more consistently across their product line than any other watchmaker in my personal experience.
Let’s take my well worn 5110 from the early 2000s as an example. It is absolutely elegant, subtle and has supreme wearing comfort. The 37mm case allows for longer lugs with some flair, which is difficult with larger watches. It still looks fresh and would pass the test of an elegant watch after all these years. I gave the watch a full wind and put it on the timer yesterday. The amplitude with no service in all these years is 265°, the rate in the dial-up position is 2s day and the positional variation is under 4s/day. And this is typical of my older Pateks. They just keep going, and going, and going as long as you don’t abuse them with extreme shock or prolonged water or high humidity exposure. Perhaps living in dry and temperate SoCal presents advantages for my watches over living in say, Hong Kong or Miami or Mumbai.
And this speaks to the overall engineering of the movements, from the regulating organ to the teeth geometry, etc., they set a high bar for timekeeping performance and longevity even with very slim calibers and even with traditional materials without silicon components, etc.
My sample size is not large given that I have a modest collection of Pateks, but I did want provide this counterpoint on why the emperor is the emperor even for their “entry” and “mid-level” watches. They have earned their brand cachet over the decades for good reason.
Just a lay person’s personal opinion.