fnfalman
Contributor
Fnfalman,
Slightly different perspective you might consider as significant to your "protective" mindset
$$$$$$The vast majority of ads and articles in the print based major dive magazines (rags new divers would read) push vest style bcd or mass marketed rear inflation with few of the benefits of bp/wing systems ...
$$$$$ The vast majority of dive stores throughout the US sell mass market bc's and typically attempt to direct all new divers to the traditional bc (of which they have a huge inventory of)....a common theme seems to be "Why sell one bp/wing to a new diver, when you COULD sell them 3 or 4 bc's over several years, and THEN tell the diver they may be ready for a bp/wing....
$$$$$$$ DEMA could be expected to push the entire dive industry toward selling 4 or 5 items of gear over several years, rather than one piece of gear that could last for the diver's life....the pervasive movement from DEMA is MAXIMIZE SALES, IGNORE FUNCTION.....some years the big push was going from orange to yellow gear, then from yellow to black...many years it was how much bigger a bc was, and how much bigger the pockets were, how many more things could be clipped on and carried (opposite to ideas of streamlining).
I could go on ad nauseum with these examples, but the issue here to me, and many to you, could be the NEED for posters on SB to attempt to counter dive industry propaganda......you must know that the people you are posting to on SB have been exposed to massive amounts of ad material and sales pushes that make the traditional BC appear to be their best choice.....I am thinking we need to give them the non-advertising based side of the story, the one that makes function king, not color. It is not really about whether you can be a great diver with a scuba pro stab jacket--obviously you can.....it is more about helping new divers or other looking for a new BC, to get the side of the story that DEMA does not want anyone to think about....
Regards,
DanV
I fully concur that advertisements and magazine articles are generally full of BS.
I come to Scubaboard for actual feedbacks. I simply take exceptions to pontificators.
Sure, the BPW; in my own mind and in my own rig configuration, is a better BC than a jacket-type. But that's just it. in MY OWN consideration. I've witnessed many a great divers whose agility and ability underwater are beyond par, and their BC of choice is some clapped out 20-years-old Scubapro jacket.
When new divers ask me about my equipment choices, I give them my reasonings for choosing my dive gears. After that, they're on their own. They're grown men and women, they can make up their own minds. I'm not going to force my opinions (and that's all they are - opinions) on anybody, and I resent others trying to do so, especially here on Scubaboard.
I don't even mind an honest, rigorous discussion. What I do mind is the ad hominem attacks by a certain people when other divers DARE to challenge their opinions.