Like Walter I go way back on this board and trust me there were a few really arrogant horses rears in the early days on this board and on occasion we still get a DIR-F’ed diver. One who takes fundies and then thinks the rest of us are dangerous and have no idea how to dive safely. "Stroke" was flying all over the place in those days and more than once I saw divers berated because they were not DIR, myself included.
Like yourself I've seen quite a few folks come through ScubaBoard like flaming meteors, leaving a scorched trail in their wake and a bunch of folks sitting around wondering what the hell just happened.
Not all of them were DIR ... in fact, the majority were distinctly not. Attitude and ego are independent of agency affiliation. And frankly, the most severe flame-wars I've seen surrounding DIR were generally created by people who are adamantly opposed to it.
DIR and team style diving has it's place and where it was designed to be used it is a very good way to dive but many of it's concepts just are not needed in rec diving. Standard gear config being one of them. If you can't look at my gear and within a few seconds understand it well enough to do a 30 ft reef dive safely, I don't want to dive with you at all (nothing personal intended-generic "you" meaning anyone). The gear is safe, 10s of thousands of diver prove that every day. On the other hand, the skills of GUE trained divers (and UTD I assume) are impressive and every diver should aspire to be as good as they are.
Lots of our gear choices are not needed in rec diving. Split fins, air-integrated computers, inline second stages, just about anything you can purchase on the accessory rack ... they're all choices. A DIR equipment configuration is a choice. Many people choose to dive that way not because they believe it's the only way to dive safely ... but because it works for them. The vast majority of them honestly won't care what equipment choices you make ... they just want to go out and dive in a way that's fun and comfortable for them ... which, when you get right down to it, are the same reasons you made the choices you did.
Where we get into massive pissing contests is when we see one person do or say something we don't like and decide to hold it against a whole group of people who may be dressed in similar gear. Nobody likes being held responsible for someone else's bad behavior.
My biggest problem with the general DIR/UTD diver (not all but many) is the idea that because I do not use the same gear or mindset as they do, I am a less skilled or more unsafe of a diver than they are. In my normal gear in a cave I would agree with them but on a simple rec dive, that is BS.
The vast majority of divers I know would agree with that sentiment ... whether or not they happen to have DIR training.
I think if you look objectively, what you find is the negative attitude you are getting may be because of the air of superiority you are projecting, again no insults intended but anyone who displays an "I am better than you" attitude around me will get less than favorable response from me, not saying you do but it's worth considering. I see the same thing with some new DM’s and instructors.
I'm not so sure that's true. I've had people take one look at my gear and make nasty comments for no reason other than that I was wearing a backplate and using a long-hose regulator. What I find is that people with a negative attitude look for reasons to be negative ... and they don't necessarily have to be valid reasons. Some folks just have a personality that causes them to look for the worst in everything. I don't need to be around those kind of people ... whatever their training and skill level happens to be.
Finally, just so you know. I have held a DIR-F card longer than many of the divers on this board have been diving, pass the first time I might add. I am still in awe at the skills of my instructors.
Interesting ... AFAIK, DIR-F has only been a pass/fail class for about six years. Before that it was a workshop.
And thanks for not posting this in the DIR section where this would have been removed, it‘s impossible to bring an alternative viewpoint if it is not allowed .
By the rules of that forum, it's not the place to argue the merits of DIR ... it's a place to go to get DIR responses to questions ... the Solo forum has essentially the same rules, and for the same reasons.
I don't have a lot of dive experience, but I have over 20 years fire department SCBA experience and an awful lot of that training fellow fire fighters. What I have come to realize is that attitude begets attitude and book smarts many times fall short without the experience to back it up. The most difficult persons are those that think they know more than I do before we even start.
When I'm teaching, it's with the expectation of finding at least one method of doing a task that works for the trainee. Until the trainee is proficient in that task, what point is there to additional methods or task loading?
My 2 cents
This is true ... but since you quoted my earlier reply I'll just explain that the reasoning behind the comment you quoted is that people who reject alternative solutions out of hand tend to not put a lot of thought into what they're doing ... they do things the way they do because "that's how it's always been done". If you happen to be someone who learns by rote, that's OK ... but if you're someone who learns by asking a lot of questions that start with the word "Why", then these people will probably leave you feeling like you missed something.
Just as there are multiple ways to dive, there are also multiple ways to learn about diving. Someone may be a very good diver, or a very good instructor, and be completely wrong for you. It depends on how compatible your learning style is with their teaching style. For someone who is "DIR-curious" ... an instructor who dismisses DIR out-of-hand wouldn't tend to be a good fit, because they will either be unable or unwilling to answer your questions about the alternative diving styles.
I personally like to give my students alternatives, explain the reasons behind each alternative, and let them decide which way works best for them. I haven't seen any evidence that doing so makes it any more difficult for them to learn ... and for those who like to "logic" through their comprehension of what they're doing, it helps them make more informed decisions.
... Bob (Grateful Diver)
Because not many shops do it that way, it's hard to find a shop where I would be truly happy instructing. Add to that the higher earning potential of other careers and guess what? I'm a DM, but not actively DMing, and I won't pursue an instructor rating anytime too soon. 
