As a former BSAC advanced instructor and dive shop owner, I do not fully blame the divers for their lack of common sense and over confident feelings of invulnerability. I easily blame both dive shop owners and the dive agencies, especially the agencies. The dive agencies are in it only for the money by their extensive exploiting of so many ridiculous certifications. I did not think I was fairly advanced until I had about 600 dives on me in all kinds of conditions, good and bad. These days you see divemasters and instructors with less than 100 dives on them. Sorry, but they haven't been diving long enough or had that many varied experiences in the water to rank for what those ratings should stand for. They are good with the pool, book learning and written test preparation to pass, but do not have real world experience. When I was a skydiving jump master we used to call jumpers with 100 jumps, 100 jump wonders. These were the jumpers who had reached that plateau of skydiving but who then thought they knew it all. The same with scuba. I have always hated the 'Advanced' certification as it tells the diver that they are, indeed, advanced divers which they clearly are not with only 25 dives on their belt. I don't know if BSAC is the same as it was but then a BSAC Advanced certification diver had several hundred dives, not 25. Now PADI, NAUI and the other certifications provide the 'Get Your Left Fin Wet' certification followed by the 'Get Your Right Fin Wet' certification and they are all absurd. Go down with a GoPro cam and get your Videographer certification. Who are they kidding? The dive agencies like to promote themselves as guardians of the seas, as outreaching to people to enjoy and learn about our marine environment but that is just a baseless front.
I would go crazy at the shop when a new diver would come in and say they were Advanced divers...with 30 dives....done over a period of 15 years. Again, who are they kidding? I hold the agencies to blame for this blatant exploitation of so called certifications, the dive shops for hiring for cheap, DMs and Instructors with minimal skills and experience, who want to use their enthusiasm in their new sport to move, unrestrained, up the certification ladder. The dive shops want to make money in a very tight business, I understand that, but they and the agencies have a responsibility to their students but look the other way, kidding themselves that things will be safe. This attitude is then passed on to the student diver.
While I might not have the gills I had as a young diver, nothing can ever take away the experiences, both good and bad, that trained me to be a better diver. I used to tell my dive students once they got certified that now they had a learners permit and should go out and really learn to dive. The certification itself doesn't make you a diver.