Again, you are missing the point. Steve identified the insight (the WHY) behind a product before he introduced the details and design. Cook & team skip all the important foreplay. It makes the products feel less Apple-y, less inspired, and simply, more like everyone else's. I love Apple and will keep buying their phones, the watch, and Macs. But for some of us, the company is also part of the products.
While this is partially true, you need to remember that about half of the pitch here seemed to be that this item is fashion. Fashion typically isn't "pitched" as a solution to "problems" (right? runway?). Thus, Apple found itself in a very delicate balancing act between showing off this device's capabilities and appealing to our rational capacities while not going overboard and establishing it as something in a line of succession to Mac, iPhone, iPad with traditional, as you call it, foreplay. The device had to spend a lot of time speaking for itself, as good fashion does.
>>Try pitching your startup to investors in the style of Tim Cook, see how far that gets you. Then you'll get it.
It would work if you were Tim Cook. But you aren't.
That's what people mean when they say, "you have to find your own voice." Tim Cook has found his. He simply needs to change the content of what he is saying. I think if he explained the importance and significance of the iWatch more forcefully, it would have been a better presentation. But that has nothing to do with style.
"Foreplay"? Apple is a consumer electronics company, not a lover. You admit you'll buy their products regardless -- why should they make a point of titillating you?
They're a consumer electronics company selling high margin, high priced, niche products to people who care a lot more about aesthetics, image and feeling than the average consumer. They do need to titillate if they want to maintain their margins.
