I am not disputing a single thing you say, but... Swiss watches are daylight robbery full stop. You either get on board or you don't. As far as I know the boutiques are getting very limited quantities of the Solargraphs, and they will sell those fairly easily. If your customer doesn't know any better they will pay and be happy, if they do they probably wouldn't buy it anyway. I agree they should have used a better base movement if one is available, but even then what price would be 'reasonable'? And where would that fit into TAGs pricing structure?
I disagree, some other brands, even some other references amongst Tag's current portfolio, are offering a sense of "getting what you paid for". Not the case here.
But your second point, I wholeheartedly agree. Tag is creating the illusion of demand by limiting supply. And clueless newcomers will fall for it, while enthusiasts will discard a 3000 **insert currency here** Citizen- powered quartz piece from the get go.
And how it would fit in current Tag's pricing strategy ?
Well, for starters, no quartz piece should be sitting above its mechanical peers price wise.
There's already quartz and mechanical Aquaracer 200m variants, and the Solargraph should be positioned in the middle. Of course it's more sophisticated than your bare bones quartz, but a quartz it remains.
So should it be more expensive than the Calibre 5 Aquaracer 200m ? Absolutely not. By insisting in doing so, it's like Tag want us to believe they invented the very solar quartz technology (spoiler they did not).
I also believe Tag limit the Solargraph supply because if it was readily available it would be heavily discounted within days. Market always adapt to wrong pricings. And asking 3000 bucks for an eco drive in swiss clothing is VERY WRONG pricing.
So they try to steer the ship the other way by offering only an handful of watches per boutique, but truth is they could hardly move more.
The Solargraph is gorgeous, and Eco-drive is a simple yet neat horology tech. Tag should've embrace that as it is, rather than pricing it like it's something else entirely.
Only a couple of hundreds more than the Quartz Aquaracer plus a "Powered by Eco-Drive" on the specs sheet, and they would sell like hot cakes.