Surely, reps can have an influence on the course of an individual journey within the wristwatch hobby...
But let's not kid ourselves. There's just one basic law, which is:
Any watch can (and most likely will) lead to more watches, if you have a certain genetic predesposition (my wife uses the less fancy term of "low IQ", or simply, "stupidity").
For me, it was a Citizen Quartz watch at the age of 12 or 13, which was my first "good watch". Then, for many years, not much followed, except for the occasional Tissot or Fossil which reminded that something was probably not right with me, because those purchases felt oddly satisfying, yet they didn't seem to fulfill a certain yearning that I couldn't pin down at the time.
Well, fast forward 30 years, and I suddenly find myself in a crazy, borderline psychotic watch spending frenzy that's been going for a couple of years now.
It was just now that I finally understood: I've always been a watch nerd — I just didn't realize it for several decades...
And I suspect that goddamn 1980s Citizen Quartz Chrono was Patient Zero in my case. I will never forget that feeling coming out of that store and looking at the dial, after having spent what felt like a fortune (well, my mom paid, but that thing was on MY wrist nevertheless! How awesome was that?)...
So yeah, reps can lead to more watches, because watches can lead to more watches. A lot of more watches. Like, REALLY a lot of watches.
Run. Run, while you can.
You may eventually outrun this very expensive hell hole.