When I read or hear the words "The Diver," it is this specific watch among all divers across all brands that comes to my mind. The AP Diver is that powerful a design IMHO.
I owned this watch for a while, but sadly had to let it go to fund another watch and because I was re-focusing my collection a bit at the time. I may very well get another Diver down the road, as I miss this one a lot. I had only two reservations regarding the Diver. One was that I sometimes had to slightly turn the crown when pushing it in after setting the time in order to avoid the minute hand jumping ahead a bit. I think this may be a characteristic of the 3120 movement, and it is a small matter but it bothered me slightly.
The other issue for me common to most Offshores, at least from my personal experience, is the size and, in particular the height, of the watches resulting in my easily banging the watch into tables and door frames. The steel and other metal bezels on the Offshores can be real scratch and ding magnets for a clumsy guy like me. I am way too fussy to tolerate much in the way of blemishes especially on the beautiful bezels of the Offshores. And this is especially true of the Diver because I regard it as the most beautiful dive watch there I and I would want to keep it pristine. That said, it is a diving watch, is intended to be used as a tool watch and yours truly should probably just chill out about keeping the watch looking mint.
But I have wondered what the Diver would look like with a rubberclad bezel as a way to address the steel bezel's vulnerabilities. I am not sure it would appear quite as beautiful to me in rubber. The design of the original version is, well, perfect from an esthetical point of view if not from a performance perspective, given my two criticisms.
I do regard the Diver as one of, if not, the most compelling watches to have been released by AP in the past several years. Your review, Michael, captures the essence of what makes this such a fine watch.
Here is mine.
And, yes, I do miss The Diver.
Best,
respo