Having spent the last 90 days or so in an intensive program of Seiko wearing, I am appreciating them more and more. Not just the value-for-money angle, but also the variety, the ruggedness of the movements, and the whimsy that comes through with their wacky models. It's a very good question "Do we need to spend ..." and the answer of course is we don't NEED to spend the money. Ultimately it comes down to do we get bang for the bucks, and that's up to each of us to decide.