The two-sided thing isn't uncommon among the higher end. Jaeger Lecoultre have been selling the Reverso since like 1931, for example. As manufacturers cram more and more functionality into the things they totally run out of room, and as such take to the back. You're right about it not being good design... on an absolute scale. There's far too much information in far too little room. But "far too much information" has been a selling point of watches for a very long time. Anything beyond "telling time" is a "complication" and that includes coaxial seconds. Vacheron Constantin claim to be the first maker of "complicated" watches in 1790. I mean, take that Reverso. The argument could be made that if you need a white watch and a black watch, buy two goddamn watches after all you're rich enough to afford a six thousand dollar Reverso. But that's not how they sell them.
That first one is like one of them double-barrel revolvers... or this: It's odd how a TV/DVR combo is considered to be worse at both, but a double watch is a mastercraft.
The first one is not like that - it's a movement with hands on both sides. Really, it's just another complication. Double-barrel revolvers or "this" are curiosities marketed to the lunatic fringe of the gun community so there are certainly similarities but a double-barreled Colt 1911 made in Italy is basically a perverse riff on a century-old design. It's also a mere $5k which, in the land of highly-collectible firearms is chump change. There's nothing odd about it. A TV-DVR is a bad TV and a bad DVR melded together in an attempt to save money for consumers that can't afford both. A Drilling? that's a shotgun and two long rifles melded together in an attempt to make a rich consumer spend more on one gun than he would on three combined. One of the bases for Bitcoin was the observation that money is nothing more than sunk time. Engraving and ornamentation always costs more because an artisan had to sit there and do it. European trade goods went for outrageous values in the New World because New World consumers had no anchor for the amount of sunk time that went into glass beads, for example. A TV/DVR combo demonstrably takes less effort to make than a TV and a DVR, while that ridiculous double-barrel Colt above goes for eight times what a Colt 1911 goes for simply because some crazy Italians have to make them a few at a time.It's odd how a TV/DVR combo is considered to be worse at both, but a double watch is a mastercraft.