I think you are mixing up a ton of information here. The OP asked about accuracy and features of the AW versus a Charge HR. IMHO, The AW lags the Charge HR (and the market) in activity tracking features. It is a software gap. Apple will probably still lag into 2017, even with OS3. Apple should be able to break even in 2018 if they can clean up the mobile app and introduce a web app.
. Fitness experts and UX designers can certainly gather a lot of useful feedback from such a lab, but that feedback gets discussed in various committees and ultimately ideas are put into action items or they are put on hold (if not completely forgotten). These are smart people and I would bet excellent designers, but good designs are not always approved... Or they are approved but severely compromised. Can you imagine the competing agendas that jockey for priority when it comes to the ongoing development of such a complex device? I am quite certain Apple cares about health and basic activity tracking. What is less certain is whether or not they plan to compete in the advanced fitness tracking market against more specialized devices, or whether they will offer any kind of social fitness network or play nice with other devices and networks. I imagine that these are hot topics in Cupertino with differing opinions thoughout all levels of the company.