Jay,
I'm not a big collector so it may not be a factor. It may be exposure to many products, owners and collector as knowledge based intelligence gathering.
I think 'trust' means the brand CEO knows that we are not setting out to spoil their launch plans or reveal stuff inappropriately.
We can share opinion and ideas but in the end, the target owner profile means more to move inventory.
So, for large production volumes, geeky opinions make almost no difference to final design e.g. "mainstream land-based watches will always have a date display; stop bitching about it." 100,000 buyers can't be wrong.
For small production and limited editions, little details matter and opinions have more influence on final design.
For high-end almost bespoke models, commentators' opinions don't matter again because the client-to-be puts in all the input.
Regards,
MTF