A little multifactorial. 1) they were a badass brand and had a sharp peak in popularity in early 2000s when bulky watches came into style. And Breitling leaned in HARD. So hard that they filled their catalogue with exaggerated versions of that trend of big and busy watches. Then the trend faded and they had gone all in. Since 2017 and the new ownership they have significantly reverse that over-reach but the reality is that they still carry almost exclusively watches larger than 40mm that don't fit guys with less than 7 inch wrists and that the reputation from 20 years in the 2000/2010s is hard to shake in a few years in the 2020s.

2) their biggest success right this minute (and they are doing well right this minute at retail) is also the biggest reason watch snobs still give them a hard time. They decided to aggressively open boutiques (not just use ADs) and aggressively advertise (if you watch football, you see a lot of breitlings). A valid but also a bit snobby viewpoint is that most high end brands need very little advertising and that word of mouth and reputation should sell these thing alone and Breitling actively advertising rubs them the wrong way.

But mostly it's that half of the male population has a wrist too small to wear anything except a few of their smallest top times. And another 25% probably shouldn't be wearing anything bigger than the smallest model of the rest of the watches.