Personally I always send it direct as I like to avoid AD's handling my watches as much as possible. I like to cut out the middle man as I've seen too many AD's who seem to have a strange compulsion to constantly wind watches they are handed, while some like to spin them round on their fingers
, and others seem to generally just handle them without a care for the fact that they don't own the watch, and that it costs a lot of money.The only issue with sending a watch direct is insuring it in transit as sometimes (at least here in the UK) the limits don't always cover the full value. Depends which you consider to be a bigger risk!