> The Apple Watch display turns on when I raise my wrist to look at it. Always-on seems more like a vanity feature than actually useful. If you aren't looking at it, it serves no purpose to be on.

Yeah... if you are wearing it. When I'm at my computer I don't like wearing a watch. So I take it off and place it next to my laptop (hate the band rubbing the desk/keyboard). In that scenario, always on is useful. Also when biking or motorcycling (especially far) I mount it to my bars because I like to be able to see it, again, not wearing it on my wrist. When biking (I bike a lot), the fitness function of an apple watch is <4 hrs. I take longer bike rides that that, so battery life is key.

> I put the watch on it's charger when I get in bed, and take it off when I wake up

yes... but if you don't have to do that for a week, it's much better. Just because you are willing to charge it daily doesn't mean it's acceptable.

All that said.... as an overall Apple fan and fitness fanatic, I would love an apple watch, if and only if, it allowed me to get 5+ hrs of fitness tracking WITHOUT bringing my phone along (so it needs GPS). So alas, I'll hang on to my Garmin which gets 24 hours of continuous GPS recording + my original Pebble until Apple Watch 2.