Great post, I agree with what you say
It's actually very helpful to me, (I think) since my next purchase will be a mid Q Daytona. Like you I am not a fan of Blingy shite, but on a rep, like a ladies or a Daytona, then yeah a few well placed "Diabics" add to the beauty of the piece.
The problem I have is I would want to see the 2 in hand before paying a significant extra for Diamonds versus Cubics, and, yeah right, unless I go on an epic voyage that is never gonna happen.
My wife has a 20 year old rep Pearlmaster 80299 like this one, with proper cubics, (my pic is not the actual watch I robbed it off an internetamabob pic)
It was a well made rep which these days we would call mid range, I'd expect to pay circa £4-500 these dayz
Now, your photos are very good quality, way better than my measly efforts, but the shade differences of Bezel and Dial etc I am
assuming are different lighting, different location etc etc .............
So, based upon that last sentence I would honestly have to see both in hand, viewing by naked eye, rather than my trusty macro headset, although macro not really necessary as afaik no one walks around with a headset on lol .............
So what I have gone round the houses to say is, me personally would go for Cubic over Diamonds every time, because if I'm buying at sensible rep prices IRL no one can spot the difference between them
Feel free to flame me guys, I'm relatively new here, but not to collecting, I did used to buy a lot and sell some reps back in my 40's (20 ish year ago), and IMHO a good quality rep is just that