I'd look at the quality/finishing of the case, hands, date window (if any)- a turnoff for me is undersized dates on a big dial, which looks so out of proportion. This problem arises when manufacturers use ubiquitous ETA 2824/2892/7750s in current 42mm & above cases which they were not designed for, eg Zeno. The Valgrange was designed for that.
Quite agree that the finishing of the hands is also one of the areas that lesser brands do not pay much attention to. Try looking at the hands of fashion watches and you'll see skinny hands with no finishing and rough edges on the sides and bare unfinished metal on the undersides.
Lesser watches try to replicate guilloche dials by stamping instead of hand turned.
Look at the hands on a PD, RS, VC, Brequet, Lange through a 20x loupe and you'll realise why you pay big bucks... apart from the in-house movt. development costs & finishing of course. Grand Seikos seems to be able to do a great job at realistic levels as they use industrial rather than artisan finishing.
At this stratospheric level the finishing appears to more impt than the accuracy or rate of the watch for some of these watches.
