Hello!
.... and is a triumph of marketing over substance in most cases. It is interesting when you look into it to find that the movements on many hugely expensive watches are the same as on much cheaper versions!
How true! Ninety percent (or so) of all mechanical watches on the market - cheap and expensive - have movements of either ETA, Lemania or Valjoux. And guess who owns all those three brands? I think the name "Swatch" has already been mentioned...
Anyway, the only real difference between a "mechanical" and a "quartz" (digital displays aside) watch is the power source, either spring or electro-magnet. From there on, the same gears and pinions drive the same hands. A quartz watch with some complications (stopwatch, calendar, ...) is made of ninety five percent mechanical parts!
And regarding "pilot watches" in general: After 20+ years of commercial flying and instructing (and an occasional private flight in between) I swear that I have not looked at my wristwatch in flight more than ten times. On many days, I don't even bother to wear one. I really only need to look at the time to meet the passengers. And even then, there is the private cellphone in my left pocket and the company cellphone in my right pocket, both of which give me more accurate time than the best watch... (constantly updated through their network and/or GPS!) I flight, there are enough devices built into the aeroplane that display and record some sort of time. Plus my two cellphones and the two cellphones of the co pilot (or student) of course. And the iPads. And all of them glow in the dark, contrary to most watches after a day under the shirtsleeve...
But I must confess that I am not immune to this watch thing either... I even collect Swatches, although I have never worn one, some of which are really pretty and almost indestructible and very well suited for flying. Batteries last for several years and cost almost nothing to replace, so a Swatch with the battery replaced once per year will never let you down. And being mostly of plastic, you can leave them on when passing through security, a big plus in these days. (Maybe I should really start wearing them...)
All I really care for in a pilot watch is an uncluttered display for instantaneous readability. For this purpose, I wear a simple Fortis sometimes (which has the big disadvantage of every "mechanical" watch that you have to reset time and date every time if you wear it only occasionally) or a Traser (Quartz) with tritium hands that glow nicely in the dark. And should I ever need one as a status symbol, the all black Sinn 756 UTC would be among my top picks (
Sinn Uhren: Modell 756 S UTC). With or without stopwatch dosen't matter at all.
Happy landings,
max