I like the 1680 quite a lot, partly because its a ridiculous watch, partly because its a unique looking thing.
You can tell they had the 5512/5513 and it was good, the crystal isn't too high, has a nice dome, holds 200M and is plexiglass and that's all good stuff. Then they decide to add a date window and the problems begin.
First problem is the magnifier, its a feature of the Day-Date and Datejust, popular with older gentleman that may not be able to see tiny numbers and so it makes sense. But it became part of Rolex's signature look and so they wanted to carry it over to the Submariner.
The difficulty is if you put a magnifier on the dome, you're not magnifying the date, you're magnifying the date on a weird angle nobody can read, and it'd have to be too far over to the right to look balanced. So you need a flat crystal not a dome to do the cyclops.
So then you've got a flat top crystal but its still plexiglass and you're still needing it to pass 200M WPT to match the stronger dome of the 5513/5512, so you add plexiglass, and more, and more, until you're sticking so far out above the bezel that the watch looks plain stupid.
But you're Swiss, and you wanted your cyclops, and you wanted your 200M depth rating, and all you had was plexiglass so you've succeeded.
What an idiotic watch... glad I own one.
