One, all dives are solo dives.
No a team is composed of components and the weakest link can be any component on that team. The weakest member of the team will always define the safety of the team. Loss of individual accountability for personal safety is loss of safety.
I hear this line of thinking a lot, but I think it is flawed for one simple reason: It wrongly implies/assumes that Team Divers are less self-sufficient and/or less accountable for their own safety.Just saying that trusting in others on a dive is not a vouch safe for you being safe. Always comes back to whether you make the correct choices and your competence when the "what if" happens.
My experience with Team Diving, and my training say otherwise. If you are not competent and accountable for your own safety, you can't be a good Team Diver. On the contrary, you need to be proficient and competent enough that you can take care of yourself AND contribute to the team. And in that case a team just provides more resources, more chances to catch mistakes, more efficiency in complex tasks, more chances to learn and improve and more fun.
It's true that the weakest member of the team can compromise the safety of the team, which is why one of the most important tenets of team diving is that the dive should always be planned to the level of the least experienced/competent member. That way you keep all of the benefits and added safety a team brings.
This is exactly the sentiment I disagree with. A dive team is MORE THAN a group of solo divers. A dive team is a group of team members - and each team member is self sufficient, competent and responsible for their own safety, IN ADDITION TO providing support to the rest of the team.A dive 'team' is a group of solo divers in the same ocean