It's not. Hermes is a non-coated silver achieved by a simple polished titanium. That's the color that titanium is after polishing, to PVD coat it would just cost more and not give you any noticeable difference anyway.
I agree Hermes is expensive for most people, however there are multiple ways to look at this. One, you have the folks here who simply make enough money to justify it. Hermes is a luxury brand, after all. Two, you have the people who will save up for it, because to a select few weird people (myself included) the Hermes Apple Watch is somewhat of a dream to be chased. Three, you can look for one secondhand or on sale. There's going to be a decent number soon here in the next few months, mostly after Christmas. Unwanted gifts will hit eBay for 50-70% MSRP. Lastly, you can wait until the next model comes out, where you'll run into people like Dstopsie who will sell their old one to upgrade for real real cheap.
I own an Hermes watch, but mine's a Series 7, and it's got a pretty ugly nick in it exposing the silver stainless underneath the DLC coating. The age and the blemish are the reason I got a pretty good deal, only paying $300 or so for the watch, band, and box. I'm with you, I'd like an Hermes Series 10, but the price is out of my range, and I understand not seeing much bang for your buck. I'll get an Hermes s10, eventually, but I'll be buying one at minimum a year from now when we start seeing those $500 deals.
As for the leather bands, yeah, I'm not really a fan of the fabric and nylon bands. For Hermes, they look cheap to me, and I think the majority of that admittedly baseless opinion is just that I think they look ugly. I prefer leather as it's a more traditional and luxurious band, but these days it's slim pickings. Thankfully most old leather bands will still interface well with the 42/46mm Series 10 and can be used no problem. Bonus is that those older bands are pretty cheap on eBay and similar resell sites if you know where to look.
All this to say, you can get an Hermes watch, even if it's not the newest one. Dip your toes in the water. Shop around. Nearly 10 years of Hermes Apple Watches means there's plenty of Hermes to choose from.
I have the insane hope to one day have one of every stainless (and titanium now i guess) color option ever released with its accompanying link bracelet and milanese loop. I've got Graphite, Gold 1, Gold 2, and Silver, though my silver is pretty outdated so I'll be looking at a S9 (or S10 Hermes maybe?)
Natural and Slate both look awesome and I'll undoubtedly be looking to grab one of each in the distant future. I think the one I'm going to hunt down closer to launch though is the new gold titanium. It's an awesome in between color of the two gold stainless generations, and that matching link bracelet is a winning combo.
Don't need to limit yourself to one watch, that's why Apple gives us 5 pairing slots. Grab one, decide later on if you still want the other, then hit up eBay or the MacRumors Marketplace to find the other one. That's my plan.
