Once on, oral inflation is pretty intuitive. In fact, it's a lot easier than other BCs I have tried. As an instructor, I would not hesitate to certify a student in one. As for a stressed diver, it appears that this system reduces stress considerably.
Somehow, I bet your attitude will change once you have.
I still have not managed to let my buddy try his i3 out yet. However I did go "diving" with him a couple of times.
In other words we DiveConned an OW class in 25 FSW.
Basically he was the first to drop down the float line and await the students at the bottom, I quickly followed less than a few seconds later. (since he was carrying all the extra clip weights and I was just normal weight he sunk like a rock and beat me to the bottom). I got to the bottom, we checked that we were both ok and as I turned to look for the first student on their way down the line he signaled to me that he was going up?!? I must have looked confused because he did our normal hand sign for "stay here help the students I will be ok and see you in a bit." I waited for the students and arranged them as per the Instructors preference for their skills session. At this time the other DiveCon descended back down behind the class. I made sure he was ok, to which he responded with the double ok sign.
I did the "WTF happened?" sign underwater but it was just too difficult for him to try and charade am answer.
The rest of the OW class dive went off without a hitch including the wall tour and skills.
Upon reaching the surface I pulled him back away from the students as they kicked in and asked him what had happened.
It turns out that as he was dropping below the surface he used his fancy little i3 lever to blow the air out of his bc. Problem was he somehow managed to also disconnect the inflator house at the same time. Upon reaching the bottom he tried to use his i3 lever to obtain some semblance of buoyancy.
However this obviously failed. He apparently had just enough time to squirt some air into his BC from his SS1 by the time I hit bottom.
By the time we both gave the ok sign he realized that he had no air left in his BC again, which he had just filled up with the SS1.
Long story short, he is a competent diver and in all honesty if he could have seen back to the side to see the hose was disconnected (or if he had asked me to look or he had been on my other side) this problem could have been fixed underwater with no one the wiser.
As it turns out the Instructor saw it just as he was popping up and she was popping down, she stopped her descent at about 6 inches, fixed the hose for him and then they both continued down.
Sure it wasnt a big problem, and sure it was easily fixed.
HOWEVER what if this had been a new diver? or a stressed diver that this had happened to? What if it had happened on the surface/on the way to the surface after an OOA/CESA/BA???
This is the problem I have with the BC thus far. It appears to be "spiffy and new" but does not seem to have been properly thought out or developed or designed.
Maybe an integral hose (as in hard wired and non removable) that ran inside the BC to the device from the area of the first stage with just a small connector going from first stage to integral hose might be better.
Then again I am not an engineer.
I did however tell you NetDoc that I would update my opinion as I gain more contact with the BC, this is my report to date.