Thanks man. Unfortunately the watch enthusiast's obsession makes us believe the bases are never covered lol, so I have far too many watches.

Exactly the same for me.

Very kind of you my friend, you as well.

Oooof, what a beautiful dial! What a watch! Loving it.

Completely agree. The OP is the hero of the Rolex line and should definitely be considered Rolex's sport watch par excellence. However, as others have noted, when Norgay and Hillary climbed everest, Rolex took the opportunity to release what was, effectively, a commemorative watch: the Explorer. Once you create a commemorative watch, you have to push it. So the legend was created to sell it and it revolved around the idea of the Explorer being the daring Explorer watch. For that legend to work, there needed to be differentiation and so the OP was shunted aside. If it hadn't have been, it could have created confused messaging for the masses who wanted the "Everest or explorer's" watch and would have wondered which is which.

Having said that, I think it's a mistake that Rolex classified the OP as a classic watch alongside the Datejust, Cellini/1908, Day-Date, and so on. It really hurt the OP and reduced it's popularity until the stella OPs came out. Personally, I love the OP and think of it as a sports/professional watch.

I would add the Squale 1521 to the list. It has the best case comfort of any of my watches, has a wonderful history, has a lovely design that isn't really derivative, is fun and has some quirkiness without being over the top, is well executed and finished, has multiple variants with different colours/movements/finishing/straps,, and the movements are great (mine has a confirmed Top Grade ETA and it's keeping better than Cosc time even after 4 years). Highly recommend it! By the way, if it helps, I have or had 5 of the other watches noted on your list. Much prefer the Squale 1521.

I would also suggest the Seiko SPB299 (or one of the other MM200 variants) as it's finishing, case, dial, etc. are awesome; the Seiko SPB151 (awesome all around); and, if you're open to preowned or negotiate extreme well at the AD, an Oris Divers 65.

Is that even a serious question 🤔? It's like asking, would you breath 😋. Stunning on so many levels.