When I decided to get PADI qualified last year, I decided that I wanted to have a watch that was my "Dive Watch". That I could use for every dive I did from the point I started, until the point someday in the future when I can't dive any more.
My criteria were:
1 - Something I liked and would want to look after, that at the same time I could afford, and wouldn't be too upset about if it ended up at the bottom of the ocean and couldn't be retrieved.
2 - Easy to use underwater and on dry land.
3 - Would sustain 30+ years of Scuba diving. Whether I can do the same is a different matter.
I absolutely could have dived with a 50m water resistant casio digital, and there would have been nothing wrong with that.
But I am also a watch nerd. So wanted something cool and interesting (to me), that fulfilled the three desires above.
I picked the CWC Royal Navy Auto MK2 - reasonably affordable, 300m water resistance, and if the armed forces have been using them since 1981, I thought they could probably cope with anything I could throw at them.
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These were built to 300m WR, because that's what the MOD specified.
As to why the watch industry makes watches with crazy depths - I guess technological bragging rights.
As to why people buy them, I'd agree with what others have said - personal bragging rights.
Rest assured, that 300m WR sure came in handy, 18m under the surface of the Adriatic.
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