While the costs are obviously not comparable, neither are the reps and gens in the overwhelming majority
of cases. One thing I haven't seen mentioned so far is reliability. A pretty large % of my reps have had some issues
especially with the movements breaking. Sometimes within a few weeks. I have a pretty big gen collection besides the reps
and I can say that there's NO comparison on that end. Even when a rep is visually very impressive, they usually don't work the same.
For ex. I have a modded APROO I bought from a member here. It looks almost gen (I put a OEM rubber strap on it too). The watch however
runs like [censored]- 3 min fast/day (after 4 adjustments by the watchsmith). I doubt that would be the case with the gen. Of course I wouldn't spend 20K
on a SS watch with a rubber band either!