Rolex versus the Big Three

[Guest]

I have read some of the forums on watch collecting and I wondered, "What if..." reagrding a Rolex I purchased for myself and whether I should have bought a sports model from one of the Big Three. The Fora seem to suggest that watches from the Big Three are not nearly as reliable as a Rolex, and service on their watches sounds excruciating. In contrast, my Rolex keeps superb time (it loses I think a second/day, but it has entered some weird phase of unholy accuracy for the past month) and it appears to be many times more reliable than my Seiko Kinetic quarts watch that I needed to have major repairs on twice, despite my having purchased it to avoid the battery problem.

What is the real story? Are stories of the Big Three's fussiness exagerated?

[zegnamtl]

What would be considered the big three?