Funny thread !
I know 2 people who worked for Rolex :
a swiss mechanical engineer : to sum up what he said, the "heritage" aura of swiss watches is total BS. Whenever a customer brings their grand grand pa's ol'timekeeper, for a repair, they simply swap a new mechanism inside, it's cheaper than repairing cogs.
As my brother, working for SAP, they hired him to study their production line to see if it was possible to gain a few pennies here and there. He spent 6 months in the factory and provided many advices.
In the end they decided not to change anything. Because in fact, the watchmaking is just a niche hobby for the family : they own almost the half of the Geneva aera real estate market.

To end this up : quite sometime ago, here in France one of our idiot ad moguls said "if you don't own your first Rolex before 50, you failed your life". I bought my first and probably last Brompton before 50, as for my watch it's an humble seiko scuba automatic, called "camel-toe" by the cognoscenties...

There's a major cultural gap around the pond :
in many european countries we used to have traditions as opposed to innovation : in France Charvet shirts, Fenestrier shoes, Hermes saddles, not to mention our many small businesses around bicycles : Idéal saddles, Stronglight, Simplex, Mafac ...
Tradition is based on the assumption that by small adjustments, the final product is totally fitted to the use of the customer.
Innovation is another beast : first you erase every historical knowledge, then you try to find new ideas. The result is a regular reinvention of the wheel (in french, it's the wire to cut butter) and at some very special moments there are spikes of extraordinairy innovations. What amazes me is that there are in the history of humanity these major spikes. It's still a puzzle : is it a manifestation of a God, some astrophysical unknowed event, or just plain randomness ?

As for the Brommie : it was a totally brilliant idea, but they stick to tradition in a world where innovation is the major drive for marketing. If only they tried to improve some of the flaws of the design and the quality....