This sounded very impressive until i realised that hand assembled most likely meant that assembly consisted of putting together the dial, hands and movement together in the case and screwing the caseback in.

Movements are typically shipped from the factory pre-assembled...as there is no benefit to assembling by hand unless you aren't sure the factory is doing it correctly. It would infact, cost much more to ship individual parts of the movements and then assemble it yourself. At which point you may as well save yourself the headache and simply deal with a reputable supplier who isn't providing you with dodgy movements. Except at the very top end of the watch range, even famous swiss brands use factory assembled movements (although they obviously use high grade movements with plenty of testing involved).

Needless to say, making precise movements by hand with no benefit of machines is impossible on a large scale and it is why at one point, american watches made in the first watch factories were the best in the world and swiss hand made watches were considered junk. The american machines were capable of far better precision than the master craftsmen working in swiss cottages and making parts by hand. That hasn't changed today. If you want a watchmaker to make every individual component of a movement by hand with no machines, be prepared to pay through the nose, wait weeks at bare minimum, and end up with a movement that probably wouldn't accept common spare parts and would need spare parts to be individually fashioned for it.

$195 certaintly isnt a bad price, but that is only for the ST36 version. Keep in mind this is for a basic mechanical, non auto winding movement with no major complications. For comparison, a ST36 movement costs roughly $60 off ebay, and that is off ebay for one movement, for a non-bulk price. Depending on how much your local watchmaker charges and the cost of getting the other components, you might actually be able to get a similar watch for less by buying the components and asking your local watchmaker to assemble it for you, or learning how to do it yourself (there are numerous guides on the nets for assembly).

$100 for sapphire crystal is also far, far too high IMHO. Sapphire crystal obviously does not cost that much, especially in bulk. To give you an idea, i have been quoted a price difference of $20 and below for basic sapphire crystal vs mineral. I suspect the price difference is based largely on anticipated demand...that people who want sapphire crystal would be willing to pay $100 for it, not that the sapphire crystal is costing them $100. I'm fairly sure your local watchmaker would be happy to swap the mineral to a sapphire for far less than $100, including the cost of the sapphire.

Off the top of my head, there are many pilot watches with ST36s (including different variants) on ebay for $80 and below, and some come with sapphire crystal as standard. Thats the kind of competition RD Horology is going up against. Most of these watches fall under the Parnis brand name (although technically, Parnis is not a brand but thats a discussion for another day) and they are well known on watch forums. Infact, Parnis has a very similar bregeut case pilot watch with the same crown and dial : http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/44mm-parnis-greenl-luminous-number-black-dial-6498-hand-winding-mens-Watch-074-/221069921105?pt=Wristwatches&hash=item3378cb4b51

The point of this wasn't to suggest that RD Horology watches are bad or that there are better alternatives, as that is for each individual person to ascertain. The point was to provide some insight into the term "hand made" and the price of watch components for comparison.