Is custom finishing ebauches a dying art?

[v76]

In the not-too-distant past, even the great marques of Patek Philippe, Vacheron Constantin, Audemars Piguet (probably to a lesser extent) and other highly regarded watch brands used to get ebauches from FP, JLC, Lemania and other makers of high/fairly high end movements, perform modifications to suit their requirements and finish them in their own signature styles/ways. I can understand in the past the reluctance of PP and VC to develop their own calibers for complicated watches when so many "tractors/base calibers" with proven and reliable track records were already available. Developing a new caliber and testing to make sure that it would be reliable, accurate and durable enough would be a very time consuming process, I imagine.

However, I find it a bit strange that even though JLC have been producing their own movements for a long time, they have been considered a step below PP and VC who happened to use a lot of JLC movements and modify/finish them to their requirements/styles. I guess I might need a primer as to why that was the case in the past

It looks like there is a wholesale move to "in-house" movements, even Patek did this a few years back. Does this signal a death knell to the fine art of ebauche modification and finishing? It looks like more and more people look down on expensive timepieces if they do not have the "in-house" cache (I have probably been guilty of this as well ...).

[h2xmark]

i think the fine art of finishing ebauche's will continue but at a slower rate and more to smaller watch company's who dont have total in house movements.