Joe:
Interesting post. Take my opinion for what its worth as I have only ever worn Sea-Dwellers. However, I do have to say that I use my date complication daily (of course!) and I do use my Sea-Dweller for its intended purpose - to be a water proof timer. I wear my 16600 each and every day and always when I swim laps. Sure, there is a clock at the end of the lap lane that can tell me the time (and do so more precisely and at a quick glance), but I love setting the bezel to my starting time and taking a glance down at the elapsed time every 10 minutes or so when I touch the wall. I also use my Sea-Dweller to time how long I have been in the water each time I go and surf. And I get some joy out of folding up that wetsuit sleeve to check the time and seeing my Sea-Dweller. I feel like it is my water brother!
That being said, if I had a watch with more complications, I do not believe I would use them. I rarely time things out of the water, so I wouldn't use a chrono function. when I deployed to Afghanistan, I thought about picking up at 16750 to always know the time back home, but the timezone in Afghanistan was an annoying 11.5 hrs ahead, and the GMT could not account for that 30 minutes, so I passed and bought a 20 Timex with dual time, chrono,k countdown timer, day, date, etc. And it kicked butt for me! I do keep track of the time (use my Surfline app for that) and I do casually monitor the moonphase, though a PP is not in my budget so I just download a free moon app
I think that the essence to this is that there are just some people who like to have a little soul in their items, and for them a watch is more than just a timer. It is something special that they enjoy wearing and building memories with and bonding with. It is part of their life. Sure, an iPhone can do everything I need, but I won't hand it down to my children one day (in fact, I probably won't even have the same one in 2 yrs!)
-Mike