Interesting enough, I have an old 601/14750 out on my bench. Mostly as a practice watch. Not one of my favorites as it is a redial, I also do not like the spindly lugs. The hands are also foxed with rust spots blisters and look dull and lifeless. Thinking some NOS hands I have had sitting around for years might look better on it.
Do not have any KS or GS watches. I did get some Seiko 5s for next to nothing. As far as I know there is not really anything to favor one over the other on a technical level. Anyone with minimal training should be able to work on either watch with similar effort.
Did read an interesting book on the Japanese watch industry what I think
@Foo2rama recommended. Does put some things in perspective. There are a lot of similarities to Switzerland as at one time before the war these were seen as low wage countries.
It really comes down to perception. The Swiss in the 1990s went out of their way to target the high end of the markets. Focusing on the upscale. The Asian makers on volume and market saturation.
This OP's observations sounds more like xenophobia, A sort of Eurocentric favoritism.
It also seems that after unification, one does not see so much cheap German stuff these days either. I think that and the French stuff of the 1970s and 1970s was highly subsidized.
What really happens to the companies is in the long run, they become operated by the pension fund managers. So there is little incentive for creating anything new, that might be risky.
