I agree that there is increased risk associated with certain choices made during diving. For that matter, there is an increased risk between doing a fully "DIR" dive to 35' in a shallow quarry and doing another fully "DIR" dive to 95' in the open ocean. I guess I just consider the difference between a 110' dive and a 100' dive similar to the difference between a 90' dive and a 100' dive. And I also admit that I being partially hard-headed because I don't want to stop doing the 100-120' dives I've been doing.
Any deviation from DIR is a compromise in safety to one degree or another.
As far as the standardization goes, I can see your point. I think the EANx32 recommendation works if you have a lot of tanks that you are mixing up, and you don't have to worry about which tank has air for dive 1 and which has the 34.9% for dive 2, etc. But at the same time, air may be a perfectly acceptable choice for a shallow dive, and if a local group adopted all of DUI's principles, but replaced 32% with (and this is a random example) 34% down to 90', recommending 30/30 for anything deeper than 90', I think it would be the same system with a slightly different implementation.
To me, you can ignore all the numbers, and exact details about what GUE actually recommends; what makes DIR effective is the mindset that "we're going to sit down, and figure out the safest way we can to conduct these dives." A lot of good divers have learned to dive deep without education, and without proper equipment. Today, we know a lot more about unsafe PPO2, and we know ways to limit narcosis. A good diver re-thinks the way they dive based on what new information and equipment is available. When it comes down to it, every organization has a set of numbers they push for max PPO2, or max depth on air, etc. I don't care what the exact numbers chosen are, I care about how they chose the numbers. Heck, even guys like Kohler, or Gentile have a max PPO2 they will dive, I'm sure. I just don't want my limits determined by "the way things used to be", or by two guys that managed to avoid potential problems due to a high personal skill level while the problem could have been eliminated in the first place.
You can do some pretty impressive things with modest techniques, and you can make up for a lot with skill level; but once you find a problem with the system, refine the system. Whether you're the guy in Seattle diving air to 240', the guy in Jersey decorated like a Christmas tree, or the couple in Cozumel going down the Throat in AL80s with their air-IIs and dangling consoles.
Tom
PS, its getting late, and I'm really sorry if this turned evangelistic, it really wasn't my intention.
