A $20 drug store watch will do if all you want is the time, but luxury watches are about more than just counting hours and minutes.

To be honest, many people buy luxury watches — generally, any watch priced at over $1,000 — because they are status symbols, planted on your wrist for all to see. They are also an investment, a finely crafted piece of bejeweled artwork to pass along to future generations. But most of all, they are pure functionality taken to the extreme, precision time-keepers tuned to split-second accuracy.

So I expected both mechanical perfection and a serious bling factor when I...