Well, "vintage Rolex" is its own brand now, and it's a brand that's almost designed to shred guys like you. Rolexes are timeless. They are classic. But they're timeless and classic because Rolex made tool watches, not jewelry. You know why the Submariner is called the Submariner? Because it's a dive watch. The Daytona is a racing chronograph, which is one reason it's named after a racetrack. These watches were tough, and years of beating on them has only made them more rugged and more real, and less like the gaudy, over-designed monstrosities coming out from brands who will remain nameless—watches that look like they belong on a Russian kidnapper, rather than a man who needs to get a job done. The Rolexes everybody likes were made to perform specific tasks in hard environments, and years of hitting them and wearing them, day in and day out, in bright sunlight, do things to them: the luminous dial patinas over, or the bezel starts to fade. When that becomes a selling point, you aren't buying a tool anymore. You're buying jewelry. Which is OK with me.
Just don't go thinking that Steve McQueen would have done it.