To start with, I've got a award winning specialty women's BC I'm putting up for sale. It's a Sherwood Luna, size small, with built-in weight integration. It's rated very highly by Rodales (
www.scubadiving.com). If interested, send me a PM. (We're selling it much cheaper than you can get it anywhere, and it's basically new with less than a dozen dives on it, all in freshwater.)
However, the reason it's for sale is because it's been replaced by a Halcyon BP/wings setup. The above is not meant as an advertisement as much as an agreement that BP/wings *might* be a better solution than a traditional BC for women. You couldn't convince my wife to go back to a jacket style BC, in any kind of diving, warm or cold.
Note, I must admit that the the first thing that we said when looking at a BP/wing setup was, "Wow, that thing looks *way* too uncomfortable". Let me ease your fears and state that looks are deceiving here. They are *NOT* uncomfortable above water, and are *way* more comfortable in the water than anything both of us have worm (which includes a dozen or so different traditional jackets between the two of us).
My wife's big complaints with traditional BC's were that they tended to squish her chest, as well as all the adjustments tended to not give her a good solid connection to her tank. The BC felt 'slushy', so things tended to roll around alot. With the BP/wings, she can roll around and the tank feels connected to her.
FWIW, my wife is 5'4", and 100# dripping wet with no padding (ie;fat) on her, and dives with her BP in warm water with only a dive skin. (The skin is to keep her warm in the 82 degree pool, and doesn't provide any padding to make the BP fit better). It's not at all uncomfortable.
The only downside to her BP/wings setup is that because she is so small, the existing 'weight integration pockets' are too large, so I ended up building some custom ones. I spoke with the folks at Halcyon, and they are aware of this problem, and have told me they are working on a solution to the problem. That means if you need more weight than 6# to dive with, a weight belt is in your future until someone comes up with a commercial solution, or you decide to build your own pockets.
Aside from that one minor downside, the BP/wing fit is *way* better and more comfortable than traditional BCs. I know that you'll get lots of suggestions for other BCs, and that you may be happy with them. However, if you get a chance to try out a BP/wing (especially in the water), you may be happily suprised to find that it's actually even more comfortable than the traditional BCs.
Good luck in your search!
Nate
:band: 
