When you started to open brick-and-mortar boutiques in high-end fashion districts across the world, the integral models in your lineup saw their DNA spliced into special limited editions so many times over that the the original models began to look like a tired sperm donor. The Big Pilot, your most popular offering and possibly the best overall watch of the '00s, spawned so many special editions it’s as if you hired the people from NIKE ID to help manufacture them. And this leads me to a thought on watch brands that I feel every company needs to understand from a collector’s perspective – future releases affect the relationship that passionate owners have with past ones. The best brands understand this, and to the naked eye they appear staid or sedate, but to enthusiasts, it appears something like respect, a tacit understanding that the watch you buy will still come to represent the brand you buy into over the coming years.