Yeah, I can confirm your observations. I have a VSF PO 42mm with the A8500 clone and it is super close to gen.Great review! Having the VSF PO rep (partly orange bezel -with the insert-, and crystal case back with 8500 decorated movement, I know that the watch looks and feels like the gen which i still had when I received the rep. I compared them back then and felt both are the same, but have not had such a detailed look as you did with this post. Thanks so much for sharing this!