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The minimum number of dives is just a foundation to be built upon by adding experience. It is valid to say that 60 dives is too few to enter the DM course because, in my opinion, you don't even have a foundation to build skills on. I also think that instructors should have higher credentials than the level they are teaching, ie; solid tech credentials to teach open water, for two reasons. One, they should be giving their students a solid base of skills that will serve them well if they elect to take tech training, and not allow habits that will be detrimental to further training, and this is difficult if the instructor doesn't have those skills to begin with, and second, the relationship is supposed to be a mentoring one, and why would you go to an instructor who has nothing more to offer after the course is over? I have seen some terrible instructors and without fail they are open water instructors with no higher certs. The best instructors are the more highly certified. It sounds stupidly simple but my experience backs it up.
I don't think technical diving is really "a level higher" than open water - it is many levels higher. I also don't think that anyone "should have to" progress to technical diving for any reason other than they want to, can do, and accept risks involved.
Technical diving qualification should ensure a high level of foundational skill competence. Tech isn't, however, the only place to develop such competence. When applied to teaching entry-level scuba, it's the foundational competence that matters, not how/where is was developed.
Makes sense to me. Coincidently I just returned from a PADI member forum and a MI I know here in Florida said he finds that the tech. divers he knows are some of the worst OW instructors he knows. He says they think they know it all and at times throw in stuff that's either irrelevant or overkill for the OW candidate. It's interesting that everyone's experiences with this is different. My guess is it's the individual instructor that matters, not whether he/she is a tech. diver/instructor or not.