"Many of the "repainted" dials you see are not actually repainted blanks - more likely they have fake Singer stamps."
Agree.
Maybe one out of one thousand are genuine blanks. After handling a lot of genuine dials the 'fake blanks' stand out...poor dial foot soldering, dial feet too big or too small in diameter, too long or too short, dials too thick or too thin, notches at 3 or 12, ratty name stamping on the back etc.
After all, where are fly by night 'dial refinishers' going to get hundreds of genuine new or used dial blanks?
"A complete 5513 replica case is much cheaper than a dial from there so it's kind of weird."
Very, very weird imho.
In 2005 'Paul' of Abay fame sold me 10 vintage 5513 and 1680 submariner 'Singer' stamped ETA dials for $10 each delivered. Not first class quality dials of course but not too bad either so maybe a first class dial will cost $25 or $35 now at the source. The cost involved in making dials is the pad printer and associated pieces. A pretty good manual model can be had for $2000 or less and a one man operation can crank out dials faster than he can sell them.
Cases take a LOT more work than dials but my guess is many of the sellers buy them for not much $$ and detail them before sale.
In my experience, aftmkt rlx dials are hit or miss no matter who sells them. I have dials from IG44, Yuki, 'Paul' and a few 'UFOs' that I do not know where they originally came from.
Yuki dials are Ok (about 20) except for two that had printing that looked like '''''''''''''''''''''''' under magnification instead of solid lines. About 6 on a 10 scale. All the others are better, about 7 or 8 on a 10 scale.
The 'Paul' dials are about a 6 on a 10 scale.
The dials that came on my MBK watches are about 7 on a 10 scale not counting the rough outer edges where they cut the 1680 dials down to 26.0mm.
IG44 dials are about 8.5 on a 10 scale. They are the best of what I have.
The 'UFOs' are between 6 and 8 on a 10 scale. The one that ranks 8 was claimed to be an IG44 dial.
The dial that came on my 2 or 3 year old cartel '5513' is about 6 on a 10 scale and is very close to the 'Paul' dials from 15 years ago...sharp lettering and hour marker dots but the lettering/minute marks are a bit dim and do not stand out like Yuki etc dials.
Have a few low ball steel case/bracelet YM and submariners from 15 or 17 years ago and the dials are about 4 on a 10 scale. Besides the overall quality being sub par, the lettering is silver instead of white. They are tough SOBs though, a few from back then are still running (ST16 mvt). They were between $28 and $35 back then depending on quantity iirc. A guy sold them out of the back of his car.