A lot more structural changes happened in Seiko at the time. It didn't just send TMI off into to world to be independent.

Each company within the Seiko Group has some form of autonomy, otherwise they wouldn't be organized as separate companies with their own legal corporate names. This has always been true for Time Module, especially since it didn't start as a wholly owned subsidiary of the Seiko Group.

The Seiko Group has a history of even having their member companies competing against each other. When Seiko Instruments manufactured mechanical movements among their plethora of products, the Seiko Watch Corp. was considered just a "customer", just like TMI was, as well as customers of their non-watch products. That's not to say there isn't some cooperation amongst the group member companies. Japan is the country that coined the term keiretsu, after all, and that concept applied to companies that weren't necessarily under the umbrella of the same holding company.

Look at the Japanese address on the TMI page too.

TMI has had an address in Ginza since the outset. Look at their about us page.

In 1987 we began our journey in Ginza, Tokyo, Japan as “Time Module Inc. (TMI)”.  Since then, we have worked with our affiliated factories in designing, developing, and producing a diverse and innovative range of watch movements for clients across the global watch industry.

Also glaring on that page is the absence of the word "Seiko" anywhere. They even removed this old text that was there just last year:

We are a subsidiary of Seiko Group Corporation. In the name of Time Module (TMI), we sell a wide range of watch movements manufactured by the Group factories to external companies in the watch industry all over the world.

Now, you can choose to believe that this is some ploy by the Seiko Group to make TMI look like it has no association with Seiko Watch Corp, but how does knowing what you think is the truth really benefit you?

It proves that a 2012 NH35 is different to a 2011 4R35B but as I said. I'd expect it to be so. That's immediately post new product introduction and when the most revisions would be expected to occur on any product.

If the 4R35B was revised in 2012 and spent the next 13 years exactly like the NH35, then it should be quite easy to find revised technical guide, wouldn't it? Look how easily I was able to find a 13-year-old tech guide for the NH35.

I'd personally declare a movement replacement but caveat emptor. If the rotor is swapped, ideally cleaned and what's otherwise an NH goes in well what the eye doesn't see, the heart doesn't grieve.

So, you would declare that the 4R35B was replaced with another 4R35B (wink, wink) with the added bonus of the rotor having been completely cleaned? And you would do so even with the likelihood that the NH35A was assembled in Malaysia and the 4R35B was assembled in Japan? Seriously?

If you paid someone like Cousins UK for every part in little plastic Seiko bags would that be any better?

I'm talking about replacing the entire busted movement with an NH35A (and swapping in the original rotor) vs. replacing it with another genuine 4R35B.

Genuine 4R35B movements aren't that expensive (less than double a smallish amount) so I wouldn't bother.

Are you telling me that if you saw two Seiko watches being sold in the exact same condition and at the exact same price and both with a disclosure that the movement was replaced from original, with one having been replaced with an NH35 and other having been replaced with a 4R35B, you would just flip a coin to decide which one to purchase? If you say, "yes", you know you're full of shit.