I don't really get the attraction of either watch, to be honest. I do like some Rolexes, some early Daytonas and pre-Daytonas in particular, and even some of the things they have done more recently - the Widmanstätten patterns on a meteorite dial, for example, though I find five (!) lines of text on the dial excessive:

They have an enviable brand awareness and reputation for quality to the man in the street, quite possibly being the only prestige watch brand they could name. Yet that air of exclusivity is more the product of incredible marketing, targeted pricing and controlling volume on key watches than anything else - consider that Heuer's annual production in its heyday was something like 1/100th of Rolex's today.

Back to that Explorer, I find Rolex sometimes has some difficulty avoiding self-pastiche - once every element is over-sized, surely you lose the effect of one being extra-large, like the GMT hand on the Explorer 24? The immediate precursor of the new watch pictured is much more attractive:

http://www.rolex.com/en#/rolex-watches/explorerii/explorer-ii-40mm-steel-16570__black__78790

With all the detailing turned up to 11, the new one has become cartoonish for me. And big blobs of high-gloss paint at the base of each hand? Looks more like a fake than the real thing like that!

So not for me, but I don't doubt for a moment that it will find its target market well enough.