When I read through the initial post, the first thing I thought was "wow, some people really feel a serious need to protect their self created image of superiority". Now I know that's a bit harsh but, someone like the individual that wrote this probably had a look at rep, noticed it was almost indiscernible from the original, and immediately felt threatened or felt like they had to defend their purchase.
Now, I can only speak for myself, but I have a feeling there are a bunch of folks on this board that have a similar take on reps and the hobby of collecting them as me. I'm a group manager at a fortune 500 company and make a decent living, I'm not rich or anything close to it, but I could afford one or two genuine watches if I chose to do so. But here is the thing, a few years ago I went looking for a gen watch. I started looking around the high end shops in my area and saw so many that I wanted, that I was paralyzed by the decision of which one to buy.
A few weeks down the road, just by happenstance (I think I googled something about a movement) I came across a rep board and found a few dealers. Next thing you know I have a nice variety of three reps, made a down payment on a new car and paid a years worth of car insurance, all with the money I set aside for a gen watch.
Long story short, for me it boils down to style, variety and value. Style is a big one for me, there just aren't that many $100 or $200 watches that have the same feel and style as the premium watch makers. I also like having a bunch of different watches to wear every week and when I evaluate it $5,000 for a single watch just isn't worth it to me, it is for some people, but not me. It is so nice to have the standard sub for work, a PAM or two for when I'm feeling a little bold and a Graham for when I'm feeling ridiculous and a few others just for the hell of it. All of these together put me out 1/8 of the price of the gen, to me they make a great value for the watch.
If someone asks, I tell them my watch is fake, usually they follow with two questions. #1. How much did it cost and #2 where can they get one. Kind of funny how that works out. One guy I work with was thrilled when I turned him on to the boards; he is an avid gen collector and says that the info. he gets from this board is better and more accurate than the info. he get from the gen sites. That and when he's considering a new purchase, he buys the closest rep available and wrist tests it for a month or two before jumping into the big dollar purchase.
Ultimately I can understand the initial post and it's goal - to drive people away from buying reps - but, really there are so many reasons that people here are into reps, that the generalizations are so inaccurate and unfair that they're barely worth reading.