Funny thing here, different agencies have different concepts of AOW, but for PADI's it is intended to follow the OW. Think of it as the advanced OPEN WATER course (i.e., OW II), rather than an ADVANCED open water course. As the PADI website says (and I quote) "...As you step beyond the PADI Open Water Diver level, you make five dives and have the opportunity to try some of divings most rewarding and useful specialty activities..."
The course is intended to expose the diver to various situations and skills under the control of a dive pro rather than muddle through on their own. It has never been marketed as a means to make someone an experienced or thoroughly skilled diver.
I just wish people would get past the incorrect assumption that the AOW means some sort of high-level training. I admit that OW I and OW II would be a better way of describing them though.
And as far as new = bad buoyancy, off Kona a few years back I tried to get a G.O.D. (Grumpy Old Diver) from standing on the coral during most of his dive. He told me that he knew what he was doing and that he had been diving longer than I'd been alive. To which I reminded him that one would think that he'd be better at diving than that after all of those years of practice.