Fascinating discussion, and I can certainly relate to much said here. A friend/neighbor is a very serious tech diver, since way before DIR, GUE, etc became the mainstream way for creating a large population of divers with plastic cards confirming they are a tech diver. I used to think tech diving was the pinnacle of the sport, and something to aspire to. A few years ago, my neighbor chartered a local six pack boat (the same one he identified several new wrecks with) for friends and family - neighbor, his 2 kids (new divers), his regular dive buddy, another "tech diver", and me. The other tech diver guy hadn't been diving in several years, his gear had issues, dry suit seals torn and leaked, and looked like a total hack. I dove wet with stab jacket and dive computer. During the dives (Santa Barbara Island), I realized I probably enjoyed the dives as much or more than the others. I've done a number of recreational local beach dives with this neighbor and had a great time. Otherwise, he mostly does caves in Mexico or a few other big trips, and months will go by between times he gets in the water
I've come to the realization that I want diving to be fun, not something I do to prove anything to anyone else, and there's a limit to how much I'm willing to plan without going diving. Several diver friends now are into tech diving, or thinking about it, and they get all excited about spending hours and days practicing turning off each other's tanks in a swimming pool while hovering without a mask. While I understand these are necessary skills for surviving tech dives, personally I'd rather go diving off a local beach exploring the local sea life in 30 ft depths and seeing pretty stuff, and sometimes even getting my wife to join me.
The last time my tech diver neighbor joined me on a beach dive, we dived the Pt Dume pinnacles (actually, it was his first time ever doing the dive), and all he could say afterward was it wasn't quite as good as discovering a new wreck at San Clemente Island with over 100 ft viz - and they spent over a year planning that trip, but it was all we could talk about for the next several hours over lunch. Between the logistics, planning, skills, time and effort needed for tech diving, I decided there's a lot of great recreational dives I can do everywhere, or even just locally, and I'll never be able to do as much as I want. I think Dr Bill summed it up quite well in his post above -
http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/ad...cking-off-technical-diving-3.html#post6853743 , and I still love seeing all his photos of local sealife taken at recreational depths
With all that being said, I do still want to take something like Fundies or Essentials to gain some of the skills I want to improve, such as propulsion techniques, but that's more for improving my diving ability rather than conquering greater (ego) depths. And a lot of the tools of tech diving that have made their way into more mainstream recreational diving, like nitrox, dry suits, backplates and DPVs have certainly improved recreational diving, and I'm sure more things associated with tech diving, like trimix and rebreathers, will continue to be simplified and move into the realm of my diving over time
