That's the least of what I would be saying in that circumstance. As you say, at least the method works.
On coil winding machines, they are not all that complicated. There is a spooling device who's rotational speed is geared down from the spindle drive. If the coils are always the same width then a bi-directional screw is used; if not then a tumbler mechanism is used so that the leadscrew that guides the wire is reversed at the right point. In this day of cheap electronics I dare say that one of our intrepid electron tamers would use a stepper motor and define the coil width as a number of pulses which in turn would be divided from an encoder on the main spindle.
Michael
( I've sown the seed now. Soon Ray (or perhaps Josh) will post that he has been looking at this idea and... (pauses for evil laughter))